Womandla: Sylvia Lucas has dismissed as propaganda allegations of racism and vote-buying.
The ANC confirmed on Thursday that it has intervened in a Northern Cape feud over Premier Sylvia Lucas’s last-minute Cabinet reshuffle and instructed her to reverse it – in line with the provincial executive committee’s (PEC) calls.
National office bearers – the “top six” – say it is unacceptable that Lucas has continued to defy the PEC and stick to her May decision to suddenly change the composition of her cabinet .
“Nobody has got a right just to say ‘I don’t agree with the ANC’ and yet they are a deployee of the ANC,” said party spokesperson Zizi Kodwa.
“The national officials met the leadership of the Northern Cape, including the premier. Obviously, the issue that we continue to reassert is that of the ANC as the strategic centre of power,” he said.
The reshuffle was Lucas’s last-ditch attempt to secure support on the eve of the ANC’s provincial elective conference, after she and her backers failed to obtain a postponement of the gathering. Lucas and co had alleged incidents of “membership cloning” at the conference, and then declined all nominations for positions .
The newly elected PEC, led by chairperson Zamani Saul, has instructed the premier to reverse her Cabinet reshuffle, which it says was factional.
“We also want to put it on record that the reshuffling has got nothing to do with improving service delivery but has everything to [do with] influencing the outcome of the conference,” Saul wrote in a statement shortly after she rejigged the Cabinet. “This is grossly irresponsible, reckless and self-serving”.
The reshuffle has been viewed as deepening the rift between the party and government in the province, with Lucas’s faction understood to be in support of president Jacob Zuma while Saul’s grouping is in favour of deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa.
There have been warnings that Lucas’s continued defiance could open her to possible disciplinary action, with the party arguing that she can’t express disagreement with the PEC from which she receives her mandate.
Her spokesperson, Bronwyn Thomas-Abrahams, reportedly said a statement would be released on the matter.
After the conference Lucas’s backers vowed to approach the national executive committee to have the results of the gathering reversed. But Luthuli House officials said they had not received any objections from structures in the Northern Cape and therefore had no reason to call for a reversal.
The national ANC leaders have not given her a deadline within which to undo her reshuffle, but they want the situation to be rectified promptly.
“We did things the same way we did with [public enterprises minister] Lynne Brown. We just said ‘this is view of the organisation, go and deal with it’,” Kodwa said. “We don’t want to micromanage, we don’t want to impose to government. Government has got its own systems and processes.”