ANC members in the Western Cape claim that around 20 party members deployed to the province as “organisers” last year have been actively campaigning for Minister of Sport Fikile Mbalula to replace ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe in the 2012 ANC elections.
“The secretary general position is one of the most powerful positions in the ANC and carries weight when appointments are made,” said an ANC member. “People want someone in that position that will be Âsympathetic to them.”
Three high-profile ANC members said that the deployed members arrived in the province as early as June last year and said they had come to assist at the ANC provincial conference, which was eventually held in February this year.
Some of the ANC organisers were still in the Western Cape, campaigning for Mbalula to take over from Mantashe, they claimed.
“They were taking advantage of the vacuum here when they arrived. They said there was a shortage of capacity, which is why they had to come before the provincial conference,” said an ANC source. “It was clear they wanted to ensure that Marius Fransman was named the leader of the province and they have been influencing the branches and campaigning for Mbalula for 2012.”
ANC sources say they are curious about who had been paying for the visits to the province, as they alleged many had been put up in guesthouses in Cape Town.
However, ANC provincial chairperson Fransman said ANC members should stop talking about the 2012 succession debate. “Our focus must be on rebuilding the structures,” he said. “It is wrong for faceless individuals in the province to consistently raise issues of 2012, which are not supposed to be on the agenda.”
Fransman said he could not comment on any campaigning for 2012 that might be taking place in the province. If the ANC members had been deployed to the province before the provincial conference, it could have been before he took over as chairman, he said.
Fransman was elected unopposed in February after his rival Mcebisi Skwatsha stepped down and declared the proceedings “fraudulent”.
Some conference delegates disputed the decision by the ANC’s constitutional committee to allow the ANC Youth League to vote, as it had been disbanded in the province last year and members should have been barred from voting, they said.
Complaints about the Western Cape provincial conference were raised at last weekend’s meeting of the national executive committee. Insiders claimed the matter was referred to the national working committee for further discussion.
Meanwhile, ANC national spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said that in the run-up to the 2012 conference, the process would be opened to members. “The entire organisation will know and then people do their campaigning openly.” He said this normally happened five months before the national elective conference, which is taking place in Bloemfontein in December next year.