Defiant Lungisa refuses to quit

The ANC in the Eastern Cape has received a letter in which the organisation’s defiant Nelson Mandela Bay regional chairperson, Andile Lungisa, is refusing to resign.

Provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane confirmed to Saturday Citizen that his office had received Lungisa’s letter. But he declined to divulge any contents.

Mabuyane said the matter was likely to be raised at this weekend’s ANC NEC meeting. He said he would make a pronouncement on the issue afterwards. “We will attend to this issue after the NEC, we will not comment about it now.”

Mabuyane confirmed that Lungisa had met the Thursday deadline given to him to reply to a call by Luthuli House for him to resign as regional chairperson, failing which he would face disciplinary action.

Lungisa is in a stand-off with ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and the provincial ANC after he was elected as regional chair while also serving as PEC member – a move that Mantashe warned was against the party’s constitution.

Mantashe asked Lungisa to resign from the regional structure, but he openly refused, claiming Mantashe read the constitution wrongly as there “was no such prohibition in the party’s constitution”.

Lungisa said the document only prohibited him from serving in both bodies and he offered to resign from the PEC.

Now, Lungisa is facing disciplinary action from the ANC for his defiance.

But the party faces a dilemma, as Lungisa’s election was endorsed by President Jacob Zuma, who had attended the regional conference where Lungisa was elected.

On Thursday, the ANC Youth League in Nelson Mandela Bay came out in support of Lungisa. The organisation said Lungisa had not flouted the ANC constitution and should not step down.

Observers believe that Lungisa, who reportedly backs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to succeed Zuma as ANC president before becoming the country’s next president, is not alone in this stance.

They believe he is being supported not only by the youth league, but by an entire Zuma faction, spearheaded by the so-called Premier League, a party clique led by the premiers of Free State, North West and Mpumalanga.

Dlamini-Zuma will contest the party’s top position, against Cyril Ramaphosa, at the ANC’s national elective conference in December.