‘ANC neglects us’
Coloured community tells senior leaders that party is not their home
The coloured community in Western Cape feel neglected by the ANC and are saying the party is not their home.
This is one of the issues that confronted ANC officials who included President Jacob Zuma and secretary-general Gwede Mantashe when they visited the province on a factfinding mission this week.
The ANC says it is an inclusive and nonracial, broad church that accommodates all ideological persuasions.
The coloured community is irked by the fact that the Dullar Omar region was only organising in black African areas such as Gugulethu and Khayelitsha.
If concerns raised by them are not resolved this is likely to hamper an ANC bid to reclaim Western Cape from the DA in the 2019 general elections.
ANC national spokesman Zizi Kodwa admitted that ANC branches in the province raised the fact that the coloured community was being neglected by the party.
“The national leadership did not have time to respond to this. That is why we are going back to the Western Cape.
“Our national character as the ANC must reflect the way we do things,” he said.
ANC Western Cape provincial executive committee spokesman Lionel Adendorf agreed with Kodwa, saying the province was giving the matter serious attention.
The visit by ANC officials to Western Cape was an attempt to unite the ANC in the province after four regions, including Boland and the West Coast, called for the disbandment of the PEC (provincial executive committee) because it is led by former SACP leader Khaya Magaxa, who is not trusted by Zuma loyalists in the province.
The province was thrown into disarray after the provincial leadership decided to disband the “dysfunctional” Dullar Omar region, which includes the Cape Town metro.
Sowetan understands that most ANC branches in the province support the PEC decision to disband the region.
“The Zuma people are threatening to overturn the decision to disband the Dullar Omar region if the PEC does not reverse its decision to dissolve the region,” said an ANC member who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“This is about the December [elective] conference. President Jacob Zuma wants his people in the Dullar Omar region to be brought back.”
An ANC member said it was supposed to have been disbanded a long time ago. “If the Zuma people continue to push for the disbandment of the PEC, they are going to divide the province further.”
The PEC is backing Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to be the next ANC president, while the Dullar Omar region has thrown its weight behind Zuma’s former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.