The ANC in the Western Cape started its long-overdue conference on Friday, at which deputy international relations minister Marius Fransman and former provincial chairperson Mcebisi Skwatsha are in the running to take over the leadership in the party in the province.
By midday on Saturday, 741 delegates had registered for the conference, despite disputes about whether the ANC Youth League — expected to support Fransman — would be allowed to vote.
The youth league in the Western Cape has no elected leadership and there were disputes about whether they needed this in order to send a voting delegation.
Skwatsha supporters danced and sang a song as the conference opened, in which delegates said they were “praying for Skwatsha and Manthashe”.
The ANC delegates at the Cape Town International Conference were far outnumbered by young wannabe superstars, waiting to audition for TV show Idols in the main hall.
Fransman booed
Despite calls to focus on unity within the province, Marius Fransman — the deputy minister of international relations, running against Skwatsha — was booed as he entered the conference hall.
High-profile figures were in attendance, including President Jacob Zuma, ANC Youth League president Julius Malema, the deputy minister of Transport Jeremy Cronin, and minister for national planning in the presidency Trevor Manuel.
Zuma did not mince his words when he addressed the conference. He criticised delegates for failing to not only regain the region from the Democratic Alliance, but also for not working as a functioning opposition party.
Zuma, who spoke from handwritten notes, argued that the conference should not focus on questions of leadership, referring obliquely to the contest between Skwatsha and Fransman, but rather on the task of returning the organisation in the Western Cape back to health.
He warned that a conference such as this one could work to address the in-fighting ailing the province — such as a scalpel in the hands of a surgeon operating on a sick patient.
But he said the congress could also work to deepen the strife that has beset the organisation in the province “like a knife in the hands of a criminal”.
‘Today it is do or die,” he told delegates.
The ANC Women’s League and the youth league were not afforded an opportunity to present their messages of support. Although the chairperson for the meeting, deputy human settlements minister Zoe Kota, apologised for the oversight, she said that the conference would not give them another opportunity to do so.