Close contest in E Cape

PROVINCIAL CHAIR: OSCAR MABUYANE VERSUS BABALO MADIKIZELA

►► ANC leadership promises peaceful elective conference.

While the Eastern Cape ANC was yesterday yet to confirm delegates’ credentials and receive a formal membership verification report, the provincial task team (PTT) convenor, Oscar Mabuyane, assured everybody the conference would be peaceful.

Mabuyane is facing stiff competition from his fellow comrade and friend, Babalo Madikizela, who is running against him for the position as provincial chair.

If he loses the election to Madikizela, as some claim is likely, it would end the dominance of the Ramaphosa faction in the province under Mabuyane.

It is not clear to which faction Madikizela belonged, but some believed he had been lobbied by the Lindiwe Sisulu/Zweli Mkhize campaign to support them at the ANC December elective conference.

Madikizela had been part of the Ramaphosa faction all along and was ANC provincial treasurer under Mabuyane and he is MEC for public works.

However, Mabuyane’s supporters were confident that their chief would be re-elected to the helm of the party this weekend.

Addressing media yesterday, Mabuyane dismissed reports that there was a plan to include “ghost delegates” at the conference – which starts today and ends tomorrow at the East London International Convention Centre.

Mabuyane confirmed at least 1 500 voting delegates from 670 ANC branches were expected to attend the conference, the second of the nine provinces to hold their conference, after Mpumalanga.

Mabuyane denied that there was an exchange of money to buy delegates’ vote for a particular faction. He asked anyone with such information to come forward to report it formally, so that it could be investigated.

“Let’s not create a narrative, let’s not create pain about this conference because this misleads society,” he said.

Mabuyane has already reiterated his support for President Cyril Ramaphosa, whom he predicted would be re-elected at the ANC December national conference.

They expected a normal ANC gathering where delegates “felt free and comfortable” and “felt free to raise any issue” they liked.

“What we cannot allow are people who are bigger than the ANC,” Mabuyane said.

In a thinly veiled reference, Mabuyane took a swipe at party’s national treasurer-general, Paul Mashatile, for not following proper process in communicating that two regional leaders, who were on step-aside, be allowed to attend the conference.

Mashatile had instructed the PTT to allow Amathole’s ANC regional secretary, Teris Ntutu, and OR Tambo region’s deputy chair, Xolile Nkompela, to participate in the conference “because there were no disciplinary cases pending against them”.

He said the suspension of a member was automatically lifted if charges of misconduct were not preferred against him within 30 days. The duo planned to contest the top five positions under the Madikizela slate.

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