East Cape ANC focus on unity after conference

“UNITY, unity, maqabane (comrades), phakama phakama (rise) Eastern Cape!”

That is the lesson the Eastern Cape ANC has taken from the national conference as Oscar Mabuyane’s team embarks on a journey to unite the divided province.

With the province having accomplished its mission to deliver Cyril Ramaphosa to the top job, the focus now shifts to uniting the party in the Eastern Cape.

Mabuyane said a priority would be to engage groups like the Amathole region, which went to Nasrec backing Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for ANC president.

Mabuyane called on all ANC members in the province to desist from being disgruntled when their preferred leaders did not get elected at conference.

He said it was important for all to rally to the ANC’s vision of realising the complete emancipation of all South Africans.

It was for this reason that the PEC was extending an olive branch to those who had held a different view going to Nasrec and, before that, during the “festival of chairs” provincial conference that elected Mabuyane and his collective.

Mabuyane said unity of purpose in implementing the decision of the Nasrec conference was of paramount importance.

“We have been talking to those who held a different view towards the leadership elected at the East London ICC and our subsequent mandate for Nasrec and we are pleased by the willingness to move forward,” he said.

“It is everyone’s democratic right to have particular opinions on issues, but comrades must be comrades after conference and ours is to make the ANC in this province a warm and comfortable home for all members.

“Unity is the principle within which we can achieve the nonracial and prosperous South Africa envisaged by the national democratic revolution.”