ANCYL elects new leadership in Rubusana region

The ANC Youth League in the Dr WB Rubusana region has elected a new leadership after months of uncertainty caused by two structures claiming to be in charge.

Loyiso Mkubelo was elected as the league’s new regional chair at the weekend.

Mkubelo’s election took place after the provincial ANCYL task team decided to disband the two parallel structures, elected hours apart in June, when Ondela Sokomani and Pedro Mzileni emerged as chairs.

Neither was elected at Saturday’s elective conference, which was marred by several glitches.

It was supposed to start at 10am, but proceedings got under way only at about 5.30pm.

Just 30 minutes later, the venue — the Robbie de Lange Hall in Greenfields — was hit by load-shedding. Delegates had to use cellphones as a source of light as proceedings continued in the dark.

Neither Mzileni nor Sokomani attended the gathering.

Sokomani, in the lead-up to the conference, refused to accept that the provincial task team had disbanded the parallel structures.

Mzileni accepted the decision to disband his regional leadership, but insiders said divisions in his faction had left him out in the cold.

He is not even an additional member of the regional executive committee.

An insider who was part of the conference said the new leadership had been imposed on the youth league by a “divisive” ANC regional secretary, Antonio Carels.

However, yesterday Carels denied being involved in picking leaders of the league, saying he had even arrived late at the conference.

The insider said the faction aligned to Mzileni was now divided and some members did not support the election of Mkubelo, “but we had no choice”. Another insider said leading up to the conference, long deliberations and negotiations had taken place between members of the Sokomani and

Mzileni factions to come up with a united leadership.

The only position that was contested was that of regional treasurer.

Sinoxolo Fama and Asanda Adams contested for the post and Fama emerged victorious.

Salizo Kotobe was elected deputy chair, Khonayo Tilongo regional secretary and Lusapho Coto his deputy.

The region announced that it would support Bongani Mani, the co-ordinator of the ANCYL provincial task team, to become chair of the province at the league’s upcoming provincial elective conference.

Mzileni could not be reached for comment yesterday about the outcomes of the conference.

Sokomani said: “I don’t know anything about any conference. As far as I know, I am still the chair.”