/ 20 July 2008

North West ANC committee faces disbandment

The entire ANC provincial executive committee (PEC) of the North West could be disbanded if a task team set up by Luthuli House finds there was vote rigging at the provincial conference that elected them in April.

The team, led by head of campaigns Fikile Mbalula, has been given the task of probing complaints by several members that the PEC, led by secretary Supra Mahumapelo, excluded many legitimate delegates to the congress and gave accreditation to non-ANC members who supported it.

ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said the North West, the Northern Cape and the Free State had been identified as areas where Luthuli House needed to intervene.

Several other incidents will also come under scrutiny by the task team. They include last month’s abandonment of a provincial ANC Women’s League conference because of suspected irregularities, fighting at a youth league provincial general council, the stabbing of members, the torching of offices and the general violence.

A Luthuli House deployee to the North West told the Mail & Guardian that the team’s purpose was to determine whether, in the light of the complaints and the violence, the ANC would be able to win with a convincing majority at next year’s national elections.

”There is no pre-determined decision to disband the PEC, but we have to investigate how the PEC has handled all these problems,” he said.

ANC provincial spokesperson Lolo Mashiane said members of the party’s national working committee (NWC) would visit the five regions of the province on Sunday to meet branch and regional structures to assess the situation at branch level.

The NWC will then meet provincial leaders on Monday to announce the outcome of the visits.

The North West province pre-dominantly supported President Thabo Mbeki at the Polokwane conference last year. The majority of those opposed to the PEC come from Jacob Zuma-supporting individuals, regions, the Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association and Cosatu.

The PEC has isolated the individuals and served 18 of them with suspension letters for disruptive behaviour. Those opposed to the PEC showed the M&G a security report prepared after the aborted women’s league conference.

The report included allegations that the PEC members brought people who were not delegates to the venue and registered them as delegates and that the ”fake” delegates were allocated rooms and given accreditation cards that belonged to the real delegates. According to the security report a printing machine that produced duplicated accreditation cards was found in the room of a PEC member.

But ANC provincial spokesperson Lolo Mashiane questioned the report, saying an inspection of the room had revealed no printing machine. She said it was unlikely that the ANC would disband the PEC, adding that the national leadership had been told that the people who filed complaints were serial disrupters of party conferences who deserved to be suspended.

A Luthuli House insider also told the M&G that the ANC was unlikely to rule in favour of rowdy elements who had disrupted ANC conferences, even if they had reservations about the PEC.