ANC in dire straits

ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has painted a bleak picture of the state of the ruling party throughout the country, pointing out that out of the nine provinces, the Free State was the worst.

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ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has painted a bleak picture of the state of the ruling party throughout the country, pointing out that out of the nine provinces, the Free State was the worst.

In his 50-page State of the Organisation report, which he presented at last weekend’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting at St George’s Hotel outside Irene, south of Pretoria, Mantashe also stopped short of blocking Limpopo from holding its elective conference in December – six months before its term of office ended.

Mantashe said that factionalism, infighting, suspicion and “gatekeeping” – a system where applications for membership were accepted on the basis of factional alignment – was rife in almost all the provinces.

Membership in four provinces – Northern Cape, Western Cape, North West and Limpopo – has dropped since September last year.

He said two provinces – KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State – were targeted for destabilisation while Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape were seen as drifting into crisis.

The only blot for the party in Gauteng was Tshwane, where factionalism and ill-discipline continue to cause a great degree of instability in the ANC and the metro municipality.

The dire problems in the provinces show that the ruling party would go to the 2012 elective conference in Mangaung, Free State, much more divided than it was in the run-up to the Polokwane conference in December 2007.

Mantashe said in the Free State, not a single ANC branch was in good standing and that there were “simmering tensions” within the provincial executive committee. The Free State has 325 branches.

The Sunday Independent has learnt, from ANC NEC members, that relations between Free State party chairman Ace Magashule and Sibongile Besani, the provincial secretary, soured as a result of the upcoming provincial conference and the December 2012 national elective conference.

The source of the battle between Besani and Magashule is apparently that Besani is punted to take over from Magashule next year, and that he would support Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula to replace Mantashe, who has clashed with the ANC Youth League on many occasions.

A member of the NEC confirmed the tension between Besani and Magashule.

“There are people who are pushing Besani for chairman and that is fuelling the tension between the two because Ace does not think that it is correct for Besani to take over,” said the member.

At last weekend’s meeting, where Mantashe tabled the report, Magashule disputed Mantashe’s comments.

“He said there is no division. He said the SG (Mantashe) was not reflecting the correct report. Besani was quiet because he writes the reports to the SG and the SG presents the reports to the NEC,” the member said.

But in the report, Mantashe said the Free State emerged from the local government elections “looking fragile, with lots of suspicions around the list processes”.

“The lack of communication among the provincial officials has created space for mistrust and the general bad-mouthing of the leadership,” Mantashe said in the report, which The Sunday Independent saw this week.

He said it was not wise for the ANC in Limpopo, which chose to hold its elective conference this December instead of June next year, to rush the event when the province has lost 18 000 members. - Moffet Mofokeng

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/anc-in-dire-straits-1.1144046

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