Outbursts by senior Pan Africanist Congress leaders will come under the spotlight in the third weekend in March when the national executive committee (NEC) meets to discuss ways of forging unity within the party.
Facing the party’s wrath will be MP Patricia de Lille, who in the second week of March was reported to have declared the PAC dead, and the leader of the party’s youth congress (Payco), Cameron Tabane, who has been lobbying for the ousting of party president Stanley Mogoba and his deputy Motsoko Pheko.
Various NEC members told the Mail & Guardian these matters will be discussed at the meeting.
De Lille reportedly told a Johannesburg audience at the launch of a marketing CD for a proposed TV programme that the PAC was dead and that “she and the party have failed”. She added that she was considering starting a new party.
“If the PAC cannot put things right in the country, then I must make another plan,” she reportedly said. De Lille, supported by PAC president Stanley Mogoba, denied that she had made these remarks.
“It is a fact that the PAC has been experiencing leadership crises for some time now, stretching from Clarence Makwetu to the present day … Despite the PAC suffering leadership problems, I have never said that the PAC is dead. That will be a reflection on the principles I hold dear.”
Jan Groenewald, owner of A&P Film and Video, which launched the proposed television programme Channel Zyron, said the reports in newpapers this week were inaccurate. “They’ve got it all wrong. Patricia de Lille was there as a guest and didn’t even make a speech. I don’t know where they got their story from.”
But Sandra Prinsloo, who appears in the programme, said De Lille had spoken at the launch. “She spoke about how opposition parties in general have failed, and not just the PAC. Somebody asked her a question about the PAC and she answered them broadly.”
De Lille conceded that various people had asked her to form a new political party. “Such an exercise will require a huge amount of money and [a] great deal of highly experienced people. The sheer logistics of such an exercise dictates that one has to carefully recruit a large number of skilled people and even more carefully raise huge amounts of money. To date I have neither the money nor the people.”
This ambivalence indicated to many in the PAC that she was clearly more than ready to jump ship. For years, PAC leaders have dreamt of uniting the party and for years this has remained a dream.
Mogoba, a retired Methodist bishop, was brought back from the church to lead the party and to unite the traditionally fractious members. But De Lille is certainly not the only leader to recognise that Mogoba has failed.
Members of the NEC and Payco recently accused Mogoba of bringing the PAC into disrepute. In February the president sent a letter to Tabane telling him he had been “terminated” as the party’s chief administrator. Tabane was asked to hand in his keys and to vacate the head office premises in Johannesburg immediately. The letter promised to give reasons for the dismissal within seven days.
“I still haven’t heard anything. I will wait for internal matters to unfold. If they are not to my satisfaction, I will take legal action,” Tabane said.
Mogoba says Tabane has been suspended, not expelled, because he disregarded an NEC decision forbidding all its members from issuing destructive comments about the four candidates for the party’s presidency.
The letter was sent after Payco called for two of the four candidates for the presidency to stand down.
“The two we settled for [to remain] are Limpopo chairman Maxwell Nemadzhivhanani together with our current general secretary, Thami ka Plaatjie,” said Thomas Mutavhatsindi, Payco’s national organiser and spokesperson.
Nemadzhivhanani says he is dismayed by Mogoba’s move to remove Tabane from the administration office.
He says Mogoba acted beyond his jurisdiction by removing Tabane as chief administrator, a decision the party’s secretary general should have made. He says Magoba had not consulted any of his NEC colleagues about his decision.
Tabane received a letter of reinstatement from Ka Plaatjie early this month, but security guards at the gate turned him away, saying they would not allow him in until Mogoba instructed them to do so.
The latest round of tumult in the party arose after Pheko bused in scores of underage children to vote for him at the party’s last congress in Umtata in December. Some were as young as nine and had thought they were on a trip to the zoo. Many of the children and other people bused to the congress said they had been promised R200 for their vote.
The stunt led to the congress being annulled. A new congress has been scheduled for June 14 to 16, when a new president will be elected.
Further divisions are likely if national organiser Themba Godi has his way. He reportedly plans to stand for the deputy presidency alongside Mogoba, adding yet another candidate for leadership.
Godi confirmed this week that he would available for any leadership position, but would not say which spot he was eyeing. Ka Plaatjie is also coming in for criticism because he was responsible for the administration of the failed congress. Even Nemadzhivhanani is taking flak. His Limpopo branch is blamed for shipping many of the unregistered delegates to the Umtata conference.