The ANC is planning to send a heavyweight team of national MPs to troubleshoot in the North West after the resignation of two provincial leaders and four regional leaders — and fears that more resignations are on the way.
This is in addition to a team of 30 administrators that has been in the North West for the past two weeks.
The ANC says its provincial leader in North West, Nono Maloyi, has warned of more defections.
In the Free State the ANC has effectively taken over the running of the provincial government without officially sacking Thabo Mbeki-aligned Premier Beatrice Marshoff.
The party has set up a transitional committee, the job of which is to watch and guard against any “strategic” appointments and make sure no major tenders are awarded in the last few months before the election. The resignation of the ANC’s deputy secretary and North West social development minister, Nikiwe Mangqo, and party spokesperson Lolo Mashiane are the first important departures in a province where the Congress of the People (Cope) has taken off far more slowly than it initially claimed it would.
ANC leaders who remain in the party but are thinking of joining Cope told the Mail & Guardian Luthuli House does not trust them. They said that the ANC is planning to install its national deputy secretary, Thandi Modise, as provincial premier next year, to oversee the provincial executive committee (PEC) members. The ANC denied this. Spokesperson Brian Sokutu said Luthuli House would never impose a candidate on a province.
The concerned PEC members also said they did not understand what the team of administrators was doing in the province. Caucus spokesperson Khotso Khumalo said they were brought in to “strengthen ANC structures” there.
Khumalo insisted that the deployment had nothing to do with defections to Cope, but said that trust between the ANC and the North West PEC had broken down. “Remember, these are the members who voted overwhelmingly for Thabo Mbeki’s third term, so there’s always been suspicion about how they work with the NEC.”
Khumalo said that further resignations might lead to the North West PEC being disbanded. “The chairperson of the province has told me that he expects more people to leave.”
A PEC member who asked not to be named said the team “was parachuted into the province” without consultation with provincial leaders, who were unclear about its mandate.
He confirmed allegations that ANC members are being sent to Cope meetings to spy on those planning to cross to the new party, an allegation Khumalo said he knew nothing about.
During a press conference in Klerksdorp on Tuesday Mangqo, an underground Cope member for weeks, said she was not comfortable that the ANC’s national executive committee claimed the PEC was elected fraudulently. “These shocking allegations seem to have been expressed as facts and not as allegations by the secretary general [Gwede Mantashe]. We respect the institution of leadership and will not allow ourselves to be associated with fraudulent conduct when there is so much to be done in taking services to our people,” Mangqo said.
In her resignation letter to Mantashe Mashiane said she had lost confidence in the ANC’s leadership because it had become undemocratic, divisive, vindictive and a serious threat to democracy, peace and stability. She said Luthuli House targeted the North West PEC because it supported Mbeki last year.
“Unknown to us was the fact that our support [for Mbeki] would be seen as inappropriate and would, over time, slowly but surely lead to our isolation from the activities of the movement.
“In the past few months we have been subjected to nothing short of modern-day McCarthyism within the movement we love,” she said. Mashiane said she did not understand why Mbeki was hounded out of office six months before his term expired.
In the Northern Cape recently ousted ANC provincial secretary Neville Mompati has joined Cope. Mompati and provincial sports minister Fred Wyngaard, former member of the provincial legislature Kenneth Sinclair and the ANC regional secretary of Francis Baard, Samora ka Komazi, announced on Thursday that they had joined the new party.
The M&G has learned that the ANC in the Free State has appointed three “advisers” for Marshoff. They will essentially run the province while she becomes only a ceremonial figure.
But Marshoff’s spokesperson said there were technical difficulties in appointing the advisers because Marshoff was overseas and they were struggling to find the money to fund the posts.
Senior ANC officials said they were convinced Marshoff is waiting to serve out her term before moving to Cope.