A group of Pan Africanist Congress leaders wants to disqualify all four candidates for the party’s presidency from standing for the position.
A group of at least five senior members wants to introduce a new candidate into the leadership race and to disqualify the four who stood at the recently annulled congress, saying the candidates had failed in their duties.
”All four candidates running for president are responsible for the collapse of the congress: [deputy president] Motsoko Pheko creates a division, [secretary general] Thami [ka Plaatjie] was responsible for the administrative failure, [Limpopo chairperson] Maxwell [Nemadzivhanani] is not running the province well and [president Stanley] Mogoba has failed as leader,” said Cameron Tabane, president of the party’s youth wing.
But Tabane thinks it would be unwise to bring in a new candidate in place of the four.
”You can’t force any of those people to step down. Bringing in a messiah won’t work, we’ve tried it before. Mogoba was brought in from outside to unite the party and now we have four candidates up for leadership, the last congress we had two, before then it was one, the next congress will see us having eight candidates if we are to bring in an outsider”.
These debates will rage at the meeting of the PAC’s national executive committee (NEC) in Willow Park, near Kempton Park, on Saturday.
Insiders say the disaffected senior members are trying to push Mogoba to dissolve the NEC because its term of office has expired. The faction apparently hopes to set up an interim structure to prepare the PAC for its next congress. The group also hopes to hold a convention between April and May to discuss the national congress and then hold the congress in June.
The faction is said to be advising Mogoba to suspend Pheko for trying to manipulate the elections, the main cause for the collapse of the congress at the University of the Transkei in Umtata.
Other groupings disagree with this outlook. Mgwebi Snail, secretary of education, says the president no longer has the power to dissolve the NEC because he is acting on behalf of congress.
”If the congress wanted the NEC dissolved, it would have said so at the congress. The president and the NEC cannot act contrary to that,” he said.
Tabane says the congress should take place as soon as possible. He says having a convention before congress would be a waste of time.
Snail says the last congress was adjourned and not nullified, so a new candidate cannot be brought in to replace the current four. The soon-to-be-scheduled congress need only continue from where it left off, he said.