Call to exclude Free State delegates over ‘invalid’ meetings

‘Top brass failed to follow ANC constitution’

HE FATE of ANC leaders and delegates in the Free State hung in the balance yesterday as a court heard a case that sought to prevent them from participating in the party’s national elective conference, starting tomorrow.

Advocate Dali Mpofu, SC – on behalf of 26 ANC branches that were gunning for Free State chairman Ace Magashule, a staunch backer of presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma – said the province’s top brass failed to follow their own party constitution when it nominated delegates to the party national elective.

The branches had urgently asked the high court in Bloemfontein to declare their participation “illegal and unlawful”.

The 26 disgruntled branches, through their counsel, Mpofu, said Magashule and his executive had undermined a court order handed on November 29 in the same court.

In that order, the high court ruled that the ANC branch general meetings held between September, October and November “were unlawful, unconstitutional and in breach of the ANC constitution.

“It is declared that the decisions, resolutions and outcome at those meetings are null-andvoid.

“It is directed that any delegates nominated or appointed in the branch general meetings at the meeting highlighted are prohibited from attending the national conference to be held (tomorrow) and the provincial conference,” the court order stated.

Yesterday, Mpofu argued that his clients were excluded from those meetings.

But advocate William Mokhari disagreed. He said Mpofu’s clients’ submission was based on hearsay.

Mokhari, however, came under fire when he submitted affidavits late in court which supported his version that his clients complied with the court order of November 29.

He said his clients had, through their branches, submitted affidavits detailing processes that were undertaken to nominate delegates for the national conference.

Judgment was not made at the time of going to print.

Meanwhile, another group of disgruntled ANC members in the North West were waiting for the outcome of their court challenge to prevent 218 delegates from Bojanala region in Rustenburg from attending the national elective conference. Judgment was due today. The group lodged a court application challenging the nomination of these delegates from 39 branches in that region.

Buti Makhongela, the former Bojanala regional chairman and one of the court applicants, told Independent Media that their group was hoping for a positive outcome in the case.

Makhongela said their troubles began when his regional executive was dismissed, allegedly by the ANC provincial executive, under provincial chairperson and premier Supra Mahumapelo.

“The PEC would come and impose another structure. They would do away with existing branches and, at times, form parallel structures.

“The same happened to our regional executive, which was removed and replaced with a regional task team (RTT).

“Later, a regional conference was held which elected a new regional executive committee,” Makhongela said.

He said they made several appeals including a formal appeal to the ANC national executive committee (NEC), but nothing came of it.

North West ANC provincial secretary Dakota Legoete expressed disappointment at the decision of his members to approach the court to “resolve internal ANC problems”.

“We are anyhow disappointed by the conduct of some of our members who run to the courts without exhausting internal organisational remedial mechanisms. We would like to encourage our members to have faith and trust in the movement’s internal processes and use them.

“We further extend an olive branch to such members to engage with the provincial leadership,” Legoete said. While he expressed reservations about his members’ decision to approach the courts, he said his party respected the centrality of the courts as the final arbiter of disputes in society.

“We want to place it on record that we are satisfied and confident about the submission our legal team made. We believe that we have got a strong case and we are also positive that the court will rule in our favour,” Legoete said.

We urge members to trust internal processes