ANC top six tackle KwaZulu-Natal crisis

• Party wracked by factional fighting • Province split over candidates for elective conference

The ANC’s top six leaders were locked in meetings on Monday night to solve the impasse between warring factions in KwaZulu-Natal.

The province — the party’s largest — is wracked by factional fighting spurred by the forthcoming national conference to elect a successor to Jacob Zuma. The nomination process opened last weekend.

The province is largely split between supporters of deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa and those backing Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

KwaZulu-Natal was plunged into crisis after the 2015 election of its Zuma-aligned leadership was recently declared unlawful by the High Court in Pietermaritzburg, just months before the ANC’s national conference.

The Zuma faction wants an appeal against the ru, while their opponents in the national executive committee want KwaZuluNatal placed under a provincial task team represented by both factions.

Zuma ally and former ANC KwaZulu-Natal chairman Sihle Zikalala, as well as his opponent and former chairman Senzo Mchunu, were not available for comment on Monday.

Their aides said they were still locked in meetings late into the night.

Sthembiso Mshengu, a Mchunu supporter, said he was optimistic that a political solution and not a legal one would take the province forward.

He said Monday was the first time the ANC’s national officials had listened to Mchunu and his supporters’ views on the crisis in the province. “We were happy at the way we were received. In fact, it was the first time with the national officials,” he said.

The officials promised to report back to the party’s national executive committee and revert to the group with a decision on the way forward.

The options included a provincial task team including both groups and talks between the warring factions in the absence of the national executive committee, which could proceed alongside a possible appeal against the judgment. While leaders were locked in

the meeting in KwaZulu-Natal, Judge Belinda Hartley in East London struck off the roll a case brought by disgruntled ANC members in the Eastern Cape who sought to halt the party’s elective conference, which took place at the weekend.

That conference elected Ramaphosa’s ally, Oscar Mabuyane, as chairman, boosting the deputy president’s campaign for the party’s top spot in December.

The situation for Zuma and his allies has become that much more urgent after the Eastern Cape result.

The KwaZulu-Natal leadership, whose election was set aside by the high court in September, is aligned to Zuma and it is at the forefront of supporting his preferred candidate, and former wife, Dlamini-Zuma.

In East London, Hartley said the applicants in the matter, who were aligned to former ANC Eastern Cape chairman Phumulo Masualle, had failed to follow her instructions to give the respondents — the newly elected leadership under Mabuyane — adequate time to respond to the application.

The urgent interim interdict was also sought to halt the provincial conference, but at the time the interdict application was heard, the conference had already concluded, making the application redundant.

Despite the case having been struck off the roll, the court battle in the Eastern Cape is not over yet.

Hartley said she did not assess the merits of the case when making her determination and the applicants were still open to review the conference.

THE COURT BATTLE IN THE EASTERN CAPE IS NOT OVER YET