The ANC’s North West and Western Cape task teams are working against the clock to convene provincial congresses by the end of December because the party’s national executive committee (NEC) has insisted there will be no extension.
The task teams should be disbanded if they do not convene provincial conferences by December, the ANC’s national working committee (NWC) has recommended to the NEC.
If that happens, an NEC team would complete the project, the NWC says in its written recommendations.
The national leadership is insistent that these provinces elect legitimate leadership and, to this end, it is prepared to accept that provincial conferences be held in the absence of some preceding regional ones.
‘Even if not all the regional conferences are held but a minimum of 70% of the branches qualify to attend the provincial conference, the conference should proceed,” the NWC’s recommendations say. ‘In that case, the new PEC [provincial executive committee] will complete the work of holding regional conferences.”
The elected leaderships of the two provinces were disbanded last year because of factionalism that the ANC’s national leadership said threatened the stability of the party. But both task teams failed to meet their initial May deadline.
In both provinces the task teams were accused of continuing to run the ANC in a way that merely constituted fresh factions. Western Cape leaders confirmed the NEC’s fears that it would take hard work to meet the deadline.
‘We are desperately trying to get the provincial conference off the ground,” said an NEC member based in the province, who did not want to be identified.
Sceptical
Although the NEC has apparently been assured that the Western Cape conference will take place in time, an ANC member in the province who spoke to the Mail & Guardian was sceptical.
‘The problem is that the provincial and regional task team members don’t want the provincial conference to take place because they can see the balance of forces in the branches and they are worried they won’t get elected,” the member said.
However, ANC sources close to the task teams said this was untrue. ‘Everybody is under huge pressure to deliver this provincial conference and their performance is being monitored,” said one source. ‘Failure to deliver would certainly not look good for them for future assignments.”
North West task team coordinator Saki Mofokeng told the M&G his team was ‘working towards” meeting the deadline. The congress is scheduled from December 17 to 19.
When it was put to Mofokeng that two regions, Ngaka Modiri Molema and Bojanala, were yet to hold their conferences, he said: ‘If there is any change we will communicate that change.”
In both affected provinces ANC members believed that disbanding the branches was misguided. Said an ANC source in the North West’s Ngaka Modiri Molema region: ‘It was not only a miscalculation, it was a political mischief that has now come back to haunt the ANC.”
The Western Cape source echoed this: ‘There should have been political education of members instead of disbanding branches.”
Mofokeng said Ngaka Modiri Molema would hold its regional conference next weekend and Bojanala’s was still to be scheduled.