ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe.
ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe says the party won’t allow its plans for the December elective conference to be derailed by court battles being fought by structures in various provinces.
The party is holding a special sitting of its National Executive Committee (NEC) at the St George’s Hotel in Irene this weekend where it is expected to discuss legal battles in province’s such as the KwaZulu-Natal and the fate of the Eastern Cape provincial executive committee (PEC).
The NEC will also discuss and make inputs to the draft version of the organisational report that will be presented at the conference.
Speaking to journalists before the start of the special NEC on Saturday, Mantashe said the party would deal with anything that threatened to stand in the way of its ability to successfully hold its conference.
“If there are court cases we will deal with them. We are winning almost all of them. That’s why when there was a judgement in the KwaZulu-Natal one, we are appealing it because we believed that it misinterpreted the constitution of the ANC,” Mantashe said.
“We can’t plan the national conference on the basis of court cases. We are planning the national conference and we are working for it, it must be a success. Anything that detracts us from succeeding we’ll deal with it”.
Chief on the agenda would be whether or not the party would uphold the results of the Eastern Cape’s September elective conference where Oscar Mabuyane was elected as chair.
A complaint has been laid by the losing camp, led by former Eastern Cape chairperson Oscar Mabuyane, which is alleging irregularities throughout the process.
Mantashe said he could not confirm whether a decision would be reached at the end of the special NEC.
This is the second last sitting of the NEC this year before the ANC elects a new leadership. Mantashe said branch general meetings (BGM), where leadership nominations were made were about 60% complete nationally.
Remaining BGMs will have to convene by November 15, failing which Mantashe said there would be no extension.
NEC members have been deployed to areas where appeals have been lodged to help reach a resolution. Provinces such as the Free State have seen some incidents of violence over the nominations process, but Mantashe said incidents of violence were isolated and fewer than what the party saw in the lead up to the 2012 Mangaung conference.
“Majority of BGMs that have been held have gone without any violence. There will be incidents of violence, particularly where is security that is brought to BGMs and therefore people get manhandled. We are dealing with these cases,” he said.