Eastern Cape ANC faces big leadership shake-up

The ANC leadership in the Eastern Cape is in for a surprising shake-up as Luthuli House moves to install a provincial task team (PTT) to steer the party towards a successful provincial conference and the November 4 local elections.

The national executive committee dissolved the Oscar Mabuyane-chaired provincial executive committee late last week after its term of office lapsed.

The ANC’s national working committee (NWC) is now set to announce an interim leadership structure, which will take the province to its elective conference later this year or early in 2027.

The NWC will meet on Monday to discuss the composition of the Eastern Cape PTT and other issues.

Several insiders said the interim structure could be led by former senior Eastern Cape ANC leaders “who are currently outside party leadership structures in the province”.

As one source put it, these individuals “might not have any factional interests as to who emerges next for the party’s top five provincial leadership positions”.

The name of senior ANC leader and former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas has been bandied about as a possible convener of the provincial task team.

Former MECs Fikile Xasa and Sakhumzi Somyo, ex-minister Mbulelo Mphahlwa and former Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Nceba Faku have also been mentioned informally as potential candidates for inclusion in the PTT.

The Eastern Cape ANC’s court battle to appeal against the court judgment in March that interdicted the party’s provincial conference from sitting, has been thrown into limbo. This as the party’s national office and its secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, on Wednesday withdrew from any participation in the provincial ANC’s appeal court proceedings. Together with the provincial ANC and it’s provincial secretary, Lulama Ngcukayitobi, the two parties were among the four applicants in the appeal process lodged by three disgruntled party members. The initial court case was initiated by members who challenged the validity of the conference amid unresolved branch meeting disputes. The Dispatch has seen court papers, dated April 29, signed by the lawyers representing Mbalula and the national ANC, containing a notice of withdrawal by these two parties in the court proceedings in the Eastern Cape. Mbalula, who did not respond to questions on Wednesday, in a statement later confirmed their withdrawal. He said the decision was reached after advice from their legal team. “The ANC confirms that the movement, together with [its] secretary-general, in their respective capacities as the second and third respondents, have today formally withdrawn the application for leave to appeal [against] the interim order of the honourable court. “The notice of withdrawal has been duly served on all relevant parties and filed with the registrar of the East London circuit court of the Eastern Cape division. “The withdrawal follows the receipt of the learned judge’s formal reasons for the interim order and was taken on the considered advice of our legal team,” Mbalula said. He said the ANC was satisfied that the issues raised in this matter, “are more substantively addressed through the other procedural avenues available to us”, before being taken to court. Mbalula said such avenues “will enable the ANC to demonstrate, on a full evidentiary footing, that the movement has adhered to the order of the court, and that the membership records and administrative processes of the ANC in the Eastern Cape are sound and consistent with the constitution of the ANC and the governing instruments of the movement”. Though Mbalula did not respond to questions around the implications of the withdrawal, in the statement, he said the “convening of the [province’s] elective conference will be undertaken in accordance with the ANC constitution and consistent with the directions of our courts of law”. While Ngcukayitobi could not be reached for comment on Wednesday, a cagey ANC provincial spokesperson Yanga Zicina said the party in the province was still forging ahead with plans to appeal against the court judgment. “The less said about this process, the better. But I can tell you now that we are still forging ahead with the legal battle, but we are applying a different legal tactic or strategy,” Zicina said. He said there was no court date yet for their appeal to be heard. He confirmed the chances of hosting a provincial conference soon were slim. The party had initially vowed to reconvene the conference before the end of April, pending a possible completion of the court matter, which now seems to be far from over. The bone of contention now is the production of “raw membership data” used in the province ahead of the planned March conference, data some within the party say is unreliable. The disgruntled members who took the party to court, led by Lwazi Rotya, had demanded that the party provide them with their membership records and verification reports which had been used in the build-up to the provincial conference. While the provincial ANC had provided them with a chance to scrutinise the records, it refused to hand them over, saying that would be tantamount to selling off their organisation and compromising their members’ confidential information such as identity numbers. However, a number of ANC insiders this week said the ANC’s membership system was so dysfunctional and in a shambles, to the extent that data contained was unreliable and could not be trusted. They said, as a result, the court challenge could expose some serious shortcomings in the party’s entire membership data. “This could lead to some regional conferences in the province, and beyond, being declared null and void due to the unreliability of the membership data that was used when they were convened,” one senior party insider said. While the current legal battle in the provincial ANC now centered around the provision of raw membership data, a possibility of a provincial conference sitting anytime soon is very slim as such required data could not be relied upon Those who spoke to the Dispatch on condition of anonymity, both in the province and nationally, are aligned to both the warring factions of the ANC in the province. “While the current legal battle in the provincial ANC now centered around the provision of raw membership data, a possibility of a provincial conference sitting anytime soon is very slim as such required data could not be relied upon,” another senior party insider said. They say if the court battle in the Eastern Cape is not dealt with politically, this could expose flaws in the party’s membership system, which is controlled at Mbalula’s office. On Wednesday, they claimed that Mbalula and Luthuli House were pulling out of court proceedings, “fearing that such a process will expose challenges in our membership system, which is dysfunctional”. They claim the data used towards many regional and provincial conferences in recent years, could be exposed to be flawed “as the membership system, and thus branch meeting verification reports used, cannot be trusted and would be exposed if they go through court scrutiny.” “This is why Fikile Mbalula and Luthuli House are avoiding court scrutiny — it could expose serious flaws in the party’s membership system,” a PEC member said. He said the party may settle the matter out of court to avoid destabilising its structures. “A provincial conference is unlikely soon. When our term lapses in May, the PEC may be replaced by a task team, with a conference only possible after the local government elections,” he said. An NEC member said the ANC was considering abandoning its appeal in favour of seeking a rescission of last month’s judgment. “The appeal would take too long and risk further exposing the organisation,” he said, adding that talks were under way to retain the current provincial leadership. Click here to join the Daily Dispatch’s WhatsApp channel and get the latest news delivered straight to your phone Daily Dispatch

Traditional, religious and women leaders of the party could make up the balance of the task team, whose aim would be to ensure the troubled Eastern Cape ANC “gets back to its feet”, ahead of the local government elections and to steer it towards a provincial elective conference.

The senior leaders mentioned could not be contacted by the time of publication on Sunday.

The Eastern Cape elective conference, scheduled for late March, collapsed at the eleventh hour after a handful of party members obtained an interim interdict, effectively halting the gathering.

They complained about the party’s handling of branch disputes, including alleged membership manipulation and fraudulent branch meetings.

Hundreds of members had already gathered at the conference venue in KuGompo City, where they spent three anxious days before the conference was eventually placed in “abeyance” by the party’s national bosses.

The ANC had hoped to get a second chance to host the conference before the end of April, but the court matters remain unresolved amid deepening factional divisions.

ANC national spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu-Motsiri said on Sunday the Eastern Cape PTT would be unveiled “very soon”.

“I can’t give you a specific time. But what I can tell you is that there is work [being] done to ensure that such appointed team succeeds and performs their duties well.

“I will not say when the announcement will be made, but it may very well be soon,” Bhengu-Motsiri said.

She said the party was “currently attending to its internal organisational processes regarding matters in both the Eastern Cape and Gauteng”.

“Once these processes have been concluded and the relevant organisational structures have finalised their work, the ANC will communicate formally with the media and the public.”

She did not comment on the possible composition of the interim task team.

However, a number of party insiders, both in the Eastern Cape and nationally, said there were strong indications that the PTT would be populated by former senior party leaders, described by one source as “people who are pure ANC and non-factional, seasoned people who are respected by the people of this province”.

“We are likely to have in the PTT, people with no interest of leadership contestation.

“People who will work for the benefit of the ANC, our elders or senior former leaders who are currently not on any provincial structure,” one senior outgoing PEC member said.

Just weeks after failing to convene a successful elective conference, the ANC’s provincial executive committee (PEC) in the Eastern Cape has been dissolved by the party’s national bosses. The party’s provincial leadership will now be replaced with a task team to steer it towards another attempt to hold a successful conference, possibly after the November 4 local government elections. These developments were confirmed by several party insiders who spoke to the Dispatch late on Thursday and Friday morning. The party’s provincial spokesperson, Yanga Zicina, on Friday also confirmed that the PEC, led by Oscar Mabuyane as chair and provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi, would soon be replaced with a new provincial task team (PTT). Zicina said more details on the development would be communicated later. The province was ready to go to an elective conference in late March, but those plans were scuppered when some party members successfully approached the court to interdict the conference amid branch meeting disputes. This is a developing story. Click here to join the Daily Dispatch’s WhatsApp channel and get the latest news delivered straight to your phone Daily Dispatch

It has been a norm in the ANC after a regional or provincial structure has been dissolved or disbanded that many of its members are retained in the task team, with the chair becoming the convener and the secretary the co-ordinator.

However, one NEC member said this might not be the case in the Eastern Cape, “as it was done in KwaZulu-Natal, where the chair and secretary were not automatic choices to take over as convener and co-ordinator”.

“It could be the same case with the Eastern Cape, with a possibility that the outgoing provincial ANC chair [Oscar Mabuyane], and provincial secretary [Lulama Ngcukayitobi], might not be retained as convener and co-ordinator, respectively.

“What could happen is that they could be retained to deputise the two new leaders, because institutional memory is also critical, so retaining them as deputies, and not convener and co-ordinator, makes sense.

“[This would] bring in a fresh school of thought, because the current leadership in the province cannot take you anywhere.

“Remember, they could not even take the province to conference, so a new dispensation, not tainted by any factionalism, could be what is brought [in] to take the province forward, as was the case in KZN, where they brought in new people altogether, including comrade Jeff Radebe,” he said.

Another senior party leader said: “The elders have much more chance to arrest the polarisation of the ANC that is going on the Eastern Cape.

“The organisation does not need a polarised or a fragmented ANC any further, especially in the year of the local government elections.

“So, stable people, with no interest in positions, including traditional leaders, businesspeople, religious leaders, senior former female leaders, basically a footprint in all sectors of society, is what the ANC needs in this provincial task team.

“We will possibly not have those still fighting it out in court entrusted with a mandate to fix the organisation, while they had proven that such a task is a challenge to them,” he said.

On Sunday when approached for comment Mabuyane said “it would be premature and inappropriate to speculate”.

Ngcukayitobi could not be reached.

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