Push to elect new E Cape leaders for ANCYL

THE leaderless ANC Youth League in the Eastern Cape will elect a new leadership before the mother body’s national elective conference in December.

This is according to ANC Youth League president Collen Maine, who told the Daily Dispatch on Friday that there was no set date for the planned provincial elective conference of the young lions, who have been led by an interim structure for over a year. But he was certain the conference would take place, come what may.

It remains to be seen how this will be affected by ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe’s ban on regional and provincial conferences post September 30.

The last elected provincial executive committee of the league, with Nathi Nqoko as chairman and Butsha Lali as secretary, was disbanded by Maine and his national executive committee last September. At the time, ANC Youth League national spokesman and NEC member Mlondi Mkhize said the reason for disbanding the Eastern Cape leadership was to strengthen its structures.

After that, a provincial task team, comprising older ANCYL members, was set up to steer the ship forward, and this team remains at the helm to date.

But Maine said plans were afoot to ensure the youth league in the province would be represented at the ANC’s December congress.

“[The provincial] conference must happen before December … we are now auditing branches, and as soon as we meet the required threshold we will then set a date, but we want it to happen before the ANC national conference,” he said.

This was echoed by ANCYL provincial task team convener Mziwonke Ndabeni, who said auditing was complete in five of the eight regions of the league.

These are Buffalo City, Alfred Nzo, Amathole, O R Tambo and Nelson Mandela Bay. Joe Gqabi, Chris Hani and Sarah Baartman are yet to be audited. “But in terms of the establishment of branches we are above 80%; however, what is pending is the verification of those branches, and then the conference shall be convened,” said Ndabeni.

He said there were more than 700 ANCYL branches in the province, and that auditing was stalled by the recently-held provincial conference of the parent body. This had forced them to miss this month, which was when they had hoped to have their own conference. “We were expecting the national auditors to come back this week, but they have shifted it to next week to finalise the audit,” said Ndabeni.

“Only after that will we have details of the exact number of branches, and the date for the conference.” — zingisam@dispatch.co.za