The ANC in the Western Cape heads to an elective conference this weekend.
- The ANC in the Western Cape says it’s ready to host its ninth elective provincial congress.
- The conference is expected to be attended by 700 delegates starting on Friday and ending on Sunday.
- Delegates will come from branches, regional executive committees, the IPC and the ANC’s leagues.
The ANC in the Western Cape heads to an elective conference this weekend, more than six years after the party’s unity and cohesion had been severely eroded and its branches existing merely on paper.
On Monday, the party’s provincial convener, Lerumo Kalako, briefed journalists on the upcoming elective conference where a new top six will be elected.
Kalako said the interim provincial committee (IPC), which he leads, has embarked on an extensive exercise of renewing and rebuilding structures of the ANC in the province.
“From time to time, questions were asked about the ability of this IPC to deliver on the terms of references given to it by the NEC, this was largely because people confined themselves only to matters relating to organising a conference whereas the terms of references were quite extensive and clear on what needed to be done,” he said.
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Kalako said the organisation had found itself in a very difficult situation, its unity and cohesion had been severely eroded, its electoral fortunes had turned for the worst, and its structures had been dysfunctional for a sustained period of time.
“Frankly, we had paper-based branches with no real active presence on the ground,” he said, adding that they operated under conditions worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Given all these internal and external challenges, the IPC has been able to operate as a cohesive unit, we have been able to forge greater unity of purpose within our structures, we have held four regional conferences and now the remaining two have met their different thresholds.”
He added:
We have had to intervene in the Dullah Omar region as well as the Southern Cape region, which were quite a big challenge for us, however as we sit here today, both regions have built active structures on the ground and will convene their own regional conferences immediately after this conference.
Despite the two regions not having met the branch general meeting threshold, its members will be allowed to take part in the conference.
Thandi Manikivana, the IPC coordinator, said: “This is not a conference of regions, it’s one of branches.”
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Kalako added that peaceful branch general meetings were held across the province and have thus met the 70% requirement for an elective conference to be held.
“Our approach to this conference is that while elections are very crucial, we will concentrate more on the content of the conference so as to ensure that the outcomes of this conference are enriched both in content and in form. All logistical arrangements have now been put in place,” he said.
The conference is expected to be attended by 700 delegates.
Of these, 650 delegates will come from branches, regional executive committees, the IPC and the ANC’s leagues.
The remaining 50 delegates will be guests from alliance partners, fraternal organisations, and other stakeholders.
One of the ANC’s top seven national officials was expected to open and close the conference.