The African National Congress (ANC) will announce a successor to embattled Eastern Cape Premier Nosimo Balindlela as soon as she returns from China, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reports.
Party secretary general Gwede Mantashe said Balindlela will be asked to resign when she returns on Thursday. He cited her ”poor” service delivery record as the reason for the move.
According to Mantashe, the ANC has already decided who should take over the reins, but he could not confirm the appointment while the premier is overseas.
”Meanwhile, the future of Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool remains uncertain,” the report added.
Earlier reports that Rasool had been asked by the ANC national executive committee (NEC) to stand down by Tuesday could not be confirmed.
The imminent sacking of Rasool and Balindlela has heightened tensions in ANC structures rather than calming them as their supporters and opponents battle for control of provincial government and party structures, the Mail & Guardian reported on Friday.
The ANC initially justified a decision by its NEC to remove them on the basis of poor service delivery, but last week Mantashe appeared to make a partial retreat, telling asset managers in Cape Town that the NEC intervention was premised on ‘political issuesâ€.
Speaking at a briefing arranged by union investment house Nehawu Securities to calm market jitters about political uncertainty, Mantashe said that final decisions on the Eastern and Western Cape would emerge from a process that would take weeks, ‘and by weeks I could mean 52 weeksâ€, he said.
The media, he suggested, had pre-empted the outcome by reporting the NEC decision.
But in both provinces party and government officials are treating the dismissals as a fait accompli and planning the next step.
They want to ensure that additional measures by Luthuli House accommodate their interests to ensure that they win out in internal electoral processes and secure maximum influence in the handover of government departments.
In the Eastern Cape two parallel processes are playing out as opposing factions jockey over potential replacements for Balindlela, while in the Western Cape the scope and duration of the victory of Rasool’s main rival, Mcebisi Skwatsha, is at stake.
Possible successors to Balindlela include Phumulo Masualle, a former Eastern Cape minister of public works who was axed in 2002 by then premier Makhenkesi Stofile, and Eastern Cape minister of economic affairs, environment and tourism Mbulelo Sogoni, who was elected provincial ANC deputy chairperson in 2006.