The highly contested Eastern Cape ANC elective conference has been postponed amid fears that the party and its leaders could be held in contempt of court.
This was relayed by Eastern Cape ANC chairperson Oscar Mabuyane to the media on Saturday afternoon shortly after a provincial executive committee (PEC) meeting.
He said the party was respecting the courts.
“We have got to satisfy what the interdict says,” said Mabuyane.
As soon as the party has resolved the issues raised in court, it will be ready to hold the conference if the ANC nationally agrees to let the province reconvene even after the April 1 deadline, which it had set for all provinces to hold conferences.
“If national agrees with us, we can hold our conference next weekend or that other weekend because the court order simply said the ANC must fix these issues, so if we fix them today [Saturday], we can hold the conference anytime,” he said.
Some of the issues raised by the disgruntled ANC members were “frivolous” and meant to put the party into disarray.
Mabuyane alleged some of the applicants were not in their branch meetings whose outcomes they are disputing.
The province wanted all the disputes resolved by the party nationally, and they would give it time.
The decision to postpone was taken by the party’s PEC on Saturday morning while a case of contempt of court was being heard in the high court in KuGompo City.
Provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi, before the meeting, issued a letter to delegates telling them the news, which angered some in the PEC, with party spokesperson Yanga Zicina accusing him of being “mischevious”.
PEC insiders who spoke to the Daily Dispatch said issuing the letter had not been agreed on by the provincial leadership.
“You cannot just send a letter to delegates telling them to go home. You need to convene them in one place and address them as the PEC. It’s not proper to say that they must just leave; you need to give them reasons why they should leave.”
The insider said it was, however, unavoidable that the conference be called off due to the contempt of court application filed in the high court.
On Friday, the Daily Dispatch reported that disgruntled members of the party in the province who obtained an interim interdict against the party barring it from continuing with the conference applied to the court, asking it to jail secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, convener of NEC deployees Mmamoloko Khubayi and Mabuyane.
The application was heard by the high court on Saturday.
“They want to arrest us, so we don’t want to be in contempt,” said the insider.
They were worried that the postponement would mean they couldn’t meet for a conference until after the local government elections.
“Remember we said from the first we wouldn’t have anything to do with conferences; we will focus on elections. So immediately we get to that date, there is nothing else we are going to do; we will focus on elections.”
Daily Dispatch