ANC conference likely to be held

THE ANC in KwaZulu-Natal will likely be able to hold its provincial conference at the end of the month should negotiations with the aggrieved regions in the province succeed and the court case set down for today is withdrawn.

Sources from within the closed-door meetings said based on negotiations going well, the court interdict that stopped the conference from taking place in Empangeni last month would be withdrawn, but they were still grappling with some of the demands.

Demands made by aggrieved party members from the Moses Mabhida, Lower South Coast and Harry Gwala regions include dealing with issues of gate-keeping, sorting out membership lists and dealing with political killings in the province.

A source from the Moses Mabhida region said the two delegations, who met at a guest house in Pietermaritzburg yesterday, were stuck on negotiating around the exclusion of KZN ANC provincial secretary Super Zuma from the Regional Task Team.

He said the Moses Mabhida region’s demands included Zuma being excluded from the task team, a reshuffle of the mayor, deputy mayor, municipal manager and speaker at Msunduzi municipality and the makeup of the new task team to have a balance of forces of pro-Zuma and pro-Ramaphosa delegates.

They also wanted to include four external ANC members who did not belong to a faction in the team, the source said.

“The makeup of the team shouldn’t be a problem but where the problem comes in, is over the exclusion of Super (Zuma) and the reshuffle of Msunduzi municipality,” the source said.

The source added that delegates from the Moses Mabhida region wanted their regional conference to only take place after a provincial congress.

“They are afraid that if they go to a conference now, the underhanded acts may still occur. They are willing to work with the PEC (provincial executive committee) and hold their regional conference later,” the source said.

Delegates representing each region have met with the members of the provincial ANC task team and national executive members since Tuesday in an attempt to settle the matter out of court.

Their case is due to be heard in the Pietermaritzburg High Court today.

Confident in settling the matter out of court, the ANC task team did not submit opposing affidavits by the Tuesday deadline in the hopes that the warring factions would find each other.

By late yesterday, one of the ANC members in attendance in the closed meeting said there was a “strong view” that the case would be withdrawn, but he could not commit to saying when.

“It could even happen at six in the morning,” he said.