/ 12 July 2009

ANC North West leaders face chop

The ANC’s national working committee is expected to recommend that the North West provincial leadership be disbanded and that four of its key leaders should not stand for re-election.

The Mail & Guardian understands the matter will be raised next weekend at the meeting of the party’s national executive committee, which will have the final say.

The four North West leaders who face the axe are provincial secretary Supra Mahumapelo; Themba Gwabeni, the executive mayor of the Ngaka Modiri Molema district municipality; provincial public works minister Mahlakeng Mahlakeng; and Molefi Sefularo, the national deputy health minister and ANC deputy chairperson in the province.

The M&G has learned that there was overwhelming agreement at an NWC meeting in Cape Town last Sunday that the North West provincial executive committee should be disbanded. The NWC had been mandated to visit and report on North West, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape, three provinces where leaders and members have been divided since the 2007 Polokwane conference.

ANC spokesperson Brian Sokutu said the party would know only after the NEC meeting what the report said. ”I wouldn’t want to pre-empt the NEC decision,” he said.

The ANC strategy, said an NWC source, was to ensure that those identified as rebels in the North West committee do not run for positions in the provincial leadership again.

The M&G understands that the ”carrot” approach will be used to encourage marked leaders not to make themselves available for leadership positions.
An ANC MP close to Luthuli House said NEC members were divided on the issue.

”The North West provincial executive committee has got the kind of support that could still vote them back in. The challenge is: how do you keep them away?”

The major concern of ANC national leaders is that most of the provincial executive committee members could be voted back on to the committee after fresh elections.

The North West committee has been notable for standing up to national leaders, including Cabinet ministers. Last week it took on Sicelo Shiceka, the minister of co-operative governance and traditional affairs, when he threatened to take control of the province’s municipalities, accusing him of acting unlawfully and serving the agenda of those seeking to render the province ungovernable.

Shiceka backed down, opting instead to leave North West Premier Maureen Modiselle and local and traditional affairs minister Gordon Kegakilwe to intervene.