/ 28 September 2018

Mahumapelo rejects task team offer

Instead
Instead, Mahumapelo has gone on the offensive, accusing the governing party of conducting a “purge” against him. (Gallo Images)

Axed North West premier Supra Mahumapelo has declined an appointment to the ANC’s provincial task team, saying he would not be part of the purge currently under way in the ruling party.

The task team was set up by Luthuli House to run the ANC in the province until after next year’s national elections.

Instead, Mahumapelo has gone on the offensive, accusing the governing party of conducting a “purge” against him since its elective conference at Nasrec in December.

The move by the former premier, who is a staunch ally of former president Jacob Zuma and who was recalled over the collapse of the North West government, comes as members of his disbanded provincial executive committee (PEC) prepare to go to court to challenge the decision by the national executive committee (NEC) to remove it from office.

Mahumapelo, whose name has been linked to the proposed establishment of a new political party comprising disgruntled Zuma supporters, told ANC secretary general Ace Magashule this week in a letter that he would not accept the post.

Mahumapelo had been included in the provincial task team in a bid to create stability in the ANC in the province, and his refusal appears to be his attempt to show the leadership the middle finger.

In a letter to Magashule, Mahumapelo said that,although he appreciated the view that he could assist in building the ANC in the province, the provincial task team was the direct result of a “purge” that had been “building since Nasrec”.

“There is a group within the NEC and the province which started working on this ‘project dissolve’just before and after Nasrec,” he said. “All means opposite to the democratic values of the ANC were used as a means to achieve this political objective, aimed at projecting some of us as pariahs in our own organisation,” he said.

“While the NEC has the power to decide anything, this decision goes against the spirit of ANC unity and renewal, and time will prove this,” he added.

Mahumapelo said the branches had been undermined by a “mob”, which was now “being catapulted and clothed with PTT [provincial task team] membership”.

“I hope leadership [will] understand that I can’t behave differently from my political conscience and conviction,” he said.

Former North West ANC provincial secretary Susan Dantjie and other members of the dissolved PEChave indicated their intention to go to court to challenge the decision to dissolve the committee.

Attempts to obtain comment from ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe were unsuccessful at the time of publication.