Moloto vows to block rival PAC faction representing party in poll

PAC president Narius Moloto has declared his intention to block the new leadership of a rival faction from representing the party before next year’s elections.

At the weekend, the faction announced Mzwanele Nyhontso as its new president of the former liberation movement, which has been embroiled in protracted factional battles that saw parallel structures emerging and members and leaders being expelled. Moloto said the new leadership under Nyhontso was elected by people who were no longer members of the party.

“The PAC cannot have a duplicate party. This conference was attended by people who were expelled from the organisation. Each one had their membership terminated, therefore there is no way in which they can constitute themselves into a PAC outside the PAC,” Moloto said.

He added that he had laid fraud charges against the grouping for using the party’s colours and logo. “We have laid charges against those people for forging the letterhead of the PAC. That is fraud. They have also entered into lease agreements in the name of the PAC and failed to service them,” he said.

Nyhontso told Independent Media that the new leadership had extended an olive branch to Moloto to “come back to the party”.

“There is only one PAC and the party was in Kimberley and elected its leadership, and now you are talking to the leader of that PAC,” Nyhontso said.

He added that the PAC had been damaged by factional divisions, which led to it having three factions with their own presidents before the party held a unity conference this year.

“We don’t have anyone to blame but ourselves and our actions. It is now time for us to clean our house and remove the PAC from the periphery,” he said.

He added that he was, however, not sure which faction was being recognised by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), which has previously withheld funding for the party due to its parallel structures.

“Our secretary-general is going to communicate with the IEC. Our conference was live, what else can we do to show where the real PAC is?” he said.

Moloto said some of the people elected at the conference were members of the Pan Africanist Movement (PAM), a splinter group of the PAC. “There was no stage when PAM was dissolved. It is a registered political party,” he said.