Candidates supporting former provincial ANC chairperson Mcebisi Skwatsha, who was axed with the rest of the provincial executive committee by the ANC in 2009, have taken the top positions in both the Boland and Southern Cape regional executives.
This comes after the ANC national executive committee took the unprecedented step of annulling last December’s Boland regional conference. The Western Cape ANC and other branch members had complained it was fraught with irregularities.
Last weekend Skwatsha supporter Pat Maraan was elected regional chairperson at a restaged Boland regional conference, narrowly beating his rival, Hector Yabo. Yabo, elected to the post at the annulled conference, is widely seen by ANC members as supporting the deputy minister of international relations and cooperation, Marius Fransman, for the position of provincial chairperson.
But Yabo has denied supporting anyone and told the Mail & Guardian he “stood for unity.” ANC members say supporters of Fransman took the key regional executive seats at the Overberg and Karoo regional conferences, and the West Coast regional conference was controversially decided by the toss of a coin. The new West Coast chairperson, Jeff Swartz, has openly declared his support for Skwatsha.
In the Southern Cape Brian Blaauw was elected chairperson last weekend. His election and that of the other four top regional executive members was widely seen as a victory for Skwatsha supporters.
Representation of unity
Blaauw said that people in the ANC could “brand us as they wish”, but confirmed that he supported Skwatsha for the post of provincial chairperson. “For us, he represents unity within the province,” he said.
While the results of the Boland and Southern Cape regional conferences are widely seen as tipping the scales towards Skwatsha, neither he nor Fransman have declared their candidacy. Campaigning in the province has been described by some ANC members as “dirty”, with unsubstantiated stories of money and positions being offered to people in exchange for votes.
The restaged Boland conference was not without its hitches. The Western Cape ANC Women’s League was allocated three voting delegates at the party’s reconvened Boland regional conference instead of the five it should have received, said Judy Hermans, the league’s provincial secretary.
“They told us it was because this was a reconference and they didn’t want to substantially change voting allocations for the first conference. We understood the decision in the spirit it was made, but were disappointed.”
Meanwhile, it appears that the regional conference of the province’s biggest region, Dullah Omar in Cape Town, will be delayed again. The coordinator for the ANC’s provincial task team, Mandla Dlamini, said earlier this week that the organisation hoped to hold the Dullah Omar regional conference this week. But at the time of going to press, ANC members said the conference had been postponed.