ANC vs ANC heading to court
THE ANC versus the ANC battle will be in court one day before the party’s Northern Cape provincial list conference is scheduled to take place on December 1.
If the urgent interdict is granted it may have an impact on the national list conference that is scheduled to take place a week later, from December 7 to 8.
The application seeks to prevent ANC branches from organising and convening branch meetings to nominate candidates to Parliament and the provincial legislature under the direction of the ANC Provincial Executive Committee (PEC).
Five ANC applicants have taken 41 ANC regional, provincial and national members, including ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule, to court, where arguments are expected to be heard in the Northern Cape High Court on November 30.
Court applicant Eric Khotseng said that a group of ANC members felt they had no choice but to apply for an urgent interdict to prevent the ANC provincial list conference from going ahead, as they had exhausted all other options.
“The dispute to overturn the outcome of the ANC regional and provincial conferences must first be finalised before the court. In the meantime court applicants have been intimidated and removed from the employment of government.
Khotseng stated that several attempts had been made to call on the ANC’s top six officials to intervene, but these attempts had proved to be unsuccessful.
“If we lose the court application we will be the first to admit that perhaps we made a mistake, but if we win it will prove that the respondents are factional. The applicants are forced by the prevailing political climate and politics of factions spearheaded by the PEC to seek legal recourse.”
Khotseng added that they had made use of Crowdfunding to fund their court application.
“The review applications pending before the court have a closely connected symbiotic relationship with the impending nomination of candidates to the national and provincial legislatures.”
He stated that branch general meetings to elect delegates for the regional and provincial conferences were “improperly and unlawfully constituted”.
“The flawed audit reports of membership and branches authorising delegates whose membership and branch standing were not accurately verified to attend both the regional and provincial conferences.”
He said the cloning of branch executive committees had added to the unresolved dispute.
“If the process of nominations was to be administered and convened under the leadership of the current PEC, the same underhanded tactics applied by themselves throughout the conferences of the ANC would become an order of the day leading to the nomination of candidates who will for the next five years from 2019 govern the Northern Cape provincial government, with some ascending to national Parliament.”
Khotseng explained that the failure of the national structures to resolve any of their complaints had led to them instituting court proceedings.