Delegates to the ANC’s 52nd national conference in Polokwane were on Sunday, the first day of the conference, concerned about disruptions to the opening session of the event, but also hopeful that the party will emerge stronger and better.
Motsotose Ndyalivani (49), a voting branch delegate from the Rogersfontein region of Grahamstown, said the conference was different from the six that he had attended in the past.
”This conference is different from the other two conferences that the ANC has had since democracy in 1994 … it is quite tense … there are two people contesting for succession,” he said. It was a good thing, he said, because ”that kind of competition is good for democracy”.
Ndyalivani said he had been a member of the ANC ”for longer than most of the members of the youth league have lived. I have been a member of the ANC since 1971 and I was a member of Umkhonto weSizwe.”
He added that he was not impressed by the behaviour of his fellow delegates on Sunday morning, when chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota had trouble controlling a protest by the ANC Youth League against vote-counting by computer.
”I cannot tolerate disrespect of a leader. If a leader speaks, it doesn’t matter how much you don’t agree with what he says, but you can’t disregard him like that,” he said.
Oscar January (38), a voting delegate from the Overberg region of the Western Cape, also commented on the vote-counting issue. ”This is a big deal because technology can be manipulated and we are paranoid,” he said. January is a Jacob Zuma supporter who said that he was not following his branch mandate to vote for party leader Thabo Mbeki. ”I don’t think they know that I am a JZ supporter because we didn’t really have time to debate about succession,” he added.
Naphtal Molope, the ”sixtysomething” chairperson of Ike Maphoto branch in the Capricorn region of Limpopo, said ”one can’t avoid emotions in conferences, particularly in a conference with the content like the one we have here”.
He said he did not feel that any comrades were out of order. ”I didn’t see anyone who didn’t follow the rules of conference because I don’t know of a rule that says people can’t sing. In fact, I think that there is a problem when you expect people not to sing because comrades will sing and eventually they will stop.”
Molope said that his branch had nominated Zuma as president and Kgalema Motlanthe as his deputy.
Veteran ANC member Ephraim Dlova (70), from the Eastern Cape, said that the tension in the conference was ”deeply disturbing and unhealthy”. This tension, he said, ”is new in any ANC conference. I grew up in the ANC and in any national conference I have attended, I have never seen this … as veterans of the ANC it is our duty to act as fire extinguishers who kill such tensions like these.”
ANC Women’s League member Johlene May said the conference was an eye-opener on how far the ANC had come. ”The president [Mbeki] hit the nail on the head when he touched on the issue of unity. We need to come out of this conference united more than ever.”