OPINION Gloves well and truly off
CHAIRS flew. Blood was spilt. Chaos reigned. Yet another ANC conference ended in chaos over the weekend as comrades traded blows, chairs were thrown and verbal abuse flowed.
When it was all over, all indications were that the Eastern Cape regional conference, like the KwaZulu-Natal and Northern Cape ones before it, would end in court.
The ANC, which has limped from one scandal to another this year, faces its biggest challenge in the 2019 elections and has to clean house before it goes to the polls. But the biggest battle for the ANC is from within.
The stakes are high in this ANC versus ANC battle in which comrades see losing power as losing access to state resources. As we have seen in KwaZulu-Natal, they are prepared to kill their own rather than lose power.
After midnight on Saturday, a court bid to stop the Eastern Cape conference was launched after it emerged that fake delegates had allegedly been allowed in, while those in good standing had been shut out.
Another court battle looms as the losing faction seeks to ask the courts to nullify the results of the conference, which saw outgoing secretary Oscar Mabuyane romp home to victory as provincial chairperson with 935 votes against Premier Phumulo Masualle’s seven.
Former ANCYL leader Andile Lungisa had a bad day at the office, getting only three votes to Lulama Ngcukayitobi’s 931 for the position of provincial secretary.
Lungisa also crashed out of the deputy provincial secretary race, getting only one vote to Helen August’s 933.
It was clear by Saturday that there were efforts by the losing faction to collapse the conference.
All these goings-on in the Eastern Cape should be placed in the context of the bigger battle for power within the governing party, and if the brutal contest is anything to go by, the December 2017 elective conference will be a bloodbath.
We have already seen the battle in KZN and the Northern Cape going to the courts, perhaps an indication that ANC wars will henceforth be a matter for courts to mediate.
This, in turn, shows the party lacks leadership at the top, and that the rot has set deeper in the structures than we’d ever imagined.
The gloves are off.
It’s ANC versus ANC.
Winner takes all.