ANC back on track as KZN regions gear up to elect leaders

Four more ANC regions in KwaZulu-Natal are gearing up for their elective conferences after the hassle-free two-day elective conference in the greater KwaDukuza region last weekend.

The ANC announced on Thursday that Emalahleni‚ Far North‚ Musa Dladla and Inkosi Bhambatha regions had successfully convened their branch general meetings from Friday to Sunday and met the 70% threshold required to convene their regional conferences to elect new leadership.

Greater KwaDukuza was the first region to hold its elective conference since Cyril Ramaphosa was elected ANC president. The province has been beset by infighting between pro-Ramaphosa supporters and those backing former ANC president Jacob Zuma.

At the heart of the infighting are factions that existed before the party’s elective conference‚ which resulted in disputes in some branches. Some proRamaphosa supporters had even suggested that the provincial elective conference — expected to be held before the end of May — be postponed until after the 2019 general elections.

But ANC national executive member Edna Molewa‚ who was deployed to oversee the province‚ told the media last weekend that the party did not believe the disputes in some branches warranted the postponement of the provincial elective conference.

The party has identified four regions as problematic — Harry Gwala‚ eThekwini‚ Lower South Coast and Moses Mabhida — because of their failure to deal with infighting.

The party said the process leading up to the elective conferences had gone smoothly and it was confident the conferences would also proceed as planned‚ characterised by “frank and robust debates”.

It said the conferences would not only elect new leadership but would also focus on crafting a plan to implement resolutions adopted at Nasrec‚ Johannesburg‚ in December.

“We have a big task as ANC members to ensure all resolutions of the 54th national conference are implemented with speed. Therefore, it is imperative for ANC members to engage properly‚” said Sihle Zikalala, the ANC provincial task team coordinator. He said that the conferences would also focus on unity and cohesion.

“We’re satisfied with the work done by the task teams deployed in Emalahleni and Far North regions‚” said Zikalala.

Zikalala‚ who supported Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma ahead of Nasrec‚ has emerged as the front-runner to win the ANC provincial chairmanship.

The pro-Ramaphosa faction is believed to support his rival, former eThekwini mayor James Nxumalo.