Mpumalanga ANC is dying ’
MANTASHE WARNED OF TENSIONS
THE ANC in Mpumalanga is dying, as proxy battles for the ruling party’s control in 2017 deepen.
This is one of the warnings contained in a letter some senior ANC leaders in the province have sent to the organisation ’ s secretarygeneral Gwede Mantashe, decrying the state of the party.
The letter came to light as tensions between ANC leaders and its alliance partner the SA Communist Party escalated in the province.
The letter was signed by Sipho Monareng and Senzeni Ngubeni, who two weeks ago launched a “save ANC in Mpumalanga campaign ”, with the backing of some provincial executive committee (PEC) members.
“The ANC members in Mpumalanga have been turned into praise singers and only have programmes developed to elect leadership.
“The ANC is deteriorating and dying and it ’ s hard to watch it die without any attempt to save it,” the letter said.
Some leaders in the PEC want Mantashe to nullify a provincial general council meeting which last weekend rubber stamped a call by regions that Mabuza serve a third term.
This was seen as a ploy to posi- tion Mabuza for an ANC top post in 2017.
The council also resolved to bring forward the elective conference to October, a move some leaders who spoke to Sowetan said would de-focus members from campaigns ahead of the 2016 local government elections.
Heightened tensions in the alliance were demonstrated when ANC and SACP members traded blows and fired shots at one another during a memorial lecture in honour of SACP stalwart Joe Slovo in Kanyamazane earlier this year.
The letter painted a picture of a party so dysfunctional its executive, dominated by Mabuza loyalists, allegedly openly manipulated processes by using ghost delegates.
“The unconstitutionally elected regional executive committees announced a third term for [Mabuza]. The ANC processes of electing … leadership are grossly violated, ” it read.
Monareng refused to comment on the letter. Mantashe yesterday said he had not received the letter and dismissed the complaints as “rumour mongering ”.
“If people write a letter to me and when it hasn ’ t arrived they send [it] to papers, I discount them heavily, it ’ s a sign of mischief, it ’ s not genuine.”
Mantashe said a team had been sent to Mpumalanga to mend fractures between the ANC and SACP.
He said those who were impatient about the process were “people who are not looking for solutions but are driving conflict ”.
ANC Mpumalanga secretarygeneral Lucky Ndinisa said it was news to him that PEC members were unhappy about the state of affairs.
“If people in their own right as delegates have been given a mandate to say the provincial chair should be allowed to stand for a third term, who are we to say they are out of order?”