The African National Congress’s national task team has effectively disbanded the party’s Eastern Cape leadership structures, headed by Premier Makhenkesi Stofile.
This is despite an undertaking that the provincial executive committee would remain in place until new leadership elections.
There is speculation that the ANC national leadership will promote MP Mluleki George as Eastern Cape party leader. George unsuccessfully challenged Stofile for party chair in the provincial elections that were later nullified.
Said one party member in the province: ”Since the national task team is already effectively running the province, we decided not to object and now nod in agreement like good schoolchildren.”
Said another: ”Task team members are present at every branch meeting. We don’t have a voice of our own anymore.”
ANC national spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said the old provincial executive had not been dissolved. He said: ”There is nothing like that.”
The task team, led by ANC national chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota, was deployed to the Eastern Cape after the ANC’s national leadership overturned as irregular the election of a new Eastern Cape leadership in November.
However, open resistance by many national executive committee members forced the reinstatement of the old provincial executive until new elections are held, probably at the end of next month.
Party insiders said task team members, including Lekota, addressed the ANC’s provincial executive committee last Friday, telling them that it was not practical for two structures to run the provincial party.
Angry ANC members in the province accuse the task team of dissolving the old executive to nullify any influence it might have on the election of the new one.
”They want to make sure that their people get in to the new [provincial exectutive committee],” said one.
Members claimed ANC national executive committee member Dumi-sani Makhaye had urged members to accept the national leadership’s decision to impose the task team on them.
The crackdown on the ANC’s provincial structures came amid allegations that the Eastern Cape was a hotbed of ”ultra-leftists” who might bid for positions on the national executive committee at the party’s national conference.
The Eastern Cape ANC has historically been close to the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party.
The task team is dominated by members closely associated with President Thabo Mbeki, including former chief whip Tony Yengeni, Minister of Public Enterprises Jeff Radebe, Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Makhaye.
The task team spent several weeks in the province preparing for the national conference last month. Lekota dominated the proceedings of the provincial conference called to choose the candidates for the national executive committee.
ANC members in the province speculate that Stofile may be pressed to stand down.