Less than a month before the ANC Western Cape provincial congress, the party in the province is still being torn apart by factionalism and violence at meetings. It has failed to hold regional conferences and the wrangling between past and wannabe leaders continues.
According to ANC leaders and party members in the province, despite improvements in the party machinery, deep divisions remain on the ground. “There have been no attempts to heal rifts,” one ANC source said.
Party members asked not to be named, saying they feared a crackdown by party leaders outside the province.
Luthuli House disbanded the provincial executive committee after it was brought to its knees by infighting, which cost the ANC control of the province in last year’s provincial election. The Democratic Alliance now runs the Western Cape, and this week won the by-election in Botriver, where the ANC deployed heavyweights to campaign.
Still struggling
Provincial party members said they were still struggling to prepare for the conference and the Western Cape coordinator and spokesperson, Mandla Dlamini, said that meetings were still being disrupted, “although they are not as bad as before. We have rowdy youths coming in and disrupting branch meetings. They are not from the ANC Youth League, but they disturb the processes,” Dlamini said.
None of the six regions in the province has held a conference yet. In terms of ANC policy regional conferences are a prerequisite for a provincial conference. The biggest region, Dullah Omar (Cape Town), remains a stumbling block, with Dlamini admitting that it “is not yet ready. There are 55 branches now but we still need 23 branches before we can have a conference. So there may still be some challenges.”
Dlamini said that the province had made significant strides in building branches. There were 25 ANC branches after the Ebrahim Rasool era, but the number had been increased to 277.
Some ANC members said they expected Membathisi Mdladlana, the former labour minister who chairs the interim structure, installed after the provincial executive was dissolved, to be elected new provincial chairperson.
A ward councillor in the Dullah Omar region said that “if Mdladlana is available he will be elected. He’s everywhere, he addresses meetings, he stands a good chance.”
But Mcebisi Skwatsha, the former provincial chairperson, still has significant support in the province and many believe he should get the top job because he has more experience than Mdladlana, who played no role in Western Cape politics until he was deployed by Luthuli House.
“There is a growing awareness that Skwatsha is essential to building the ANC in the Western Cape because of his years of commitment and 10 years’ experience as the provincial secretary,” a source said.
Upbeat
Some ANC members were fairly upbeat about the situation. “Some problems will [take more than] a year to disappear,” said one, “but it is a good thing leaders will be nominated shortly. It is not easy having people coming in from outside the region to run the province,” one said.
A key priority for the provincial ANC members is to regain lost ground by winning back wards — and control of the city of Cape Town, which is symbolic — from the DA in next year’s municipal elections. To achieve this, national ANC leaders have intervened in the Western Cape since the provincial leadership was disbanded.
Gwede Mantashe, the ANC secretary general, has personally visited the province and held meetings with provincial power-brokers. Rasool, the former premier who was accused of bribing journalists and some of his supporters have been shifted into diplomatic posts, while the last cog in the Rasool machine, Marius Fransman, was recently appointed deputy minister of international relations and cooperation.
The ANC has also sent in heavyweight leaders to lobby support in by-elections. This week Fransman and Tina Joemat-Pettersson, the agriculture minister, were dispatched to the small village of Botrivier to shore up coloured support in a by-election there.