Africa-Press – South-Africa. The ANC Gauteng elective conference, which was unable to conclude its work over the weekend, will reconvene from 9 to 10 July.
Newly elected chairperson Panyaza Lesufi made the announcement on Tuesday during a post-conference media briefing held at the party’s headquarters at Luthuli House.
According to Lesufi, the outstanding business of the conference was the election of additional provincial executive committee (PEC) members and discussing policy documents.
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“There were a number of things that never happened this weekend, and as such we have resolved to reconvene the conference from the 9th to the 10th of July to conclude the work of the conference,” said the newly elected Gauteng ANC chairperson.
Despite being allocated four days more than all the other provincial and regional conferences already convened before it, the ANC in Gauteng failed to conclude all its work.
Lesufi said it would be disingenuous to blame the failure to meet deadlines on the previous PEC.
He said that “most of the delays were due to the 19 quarantined votes from Ekurhuleni and how to deal with those. The ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) met for over seven hours, if you may remember, and this occurred when the provincial conference was supposed to have been sitting”.
“Having met that long, the national leadership still felt that the PEC would be better placed to handle the matter and when the matter was passed to the PEC, it only took them one day to resolve that the branches affected be invited to the conference so it would be wrong to say the conference was chaotic or shambolic as it has already been categorised,” said Lesufi.
News24 reported that the ANC’s special NEC meeting had given the green light for the party’s Gauteng elective conference to go ahead, but tasked the PEC to deal with the disputed Ekurhuleni.
The Ekurhuleni regional conference was marred by violence and at its contentious ending, which saw only preliminary results being announced, the steering committee overseeing the Ekurhuleni conference quarantined 19 votes pending a verification process.
The 19 votes from six branches were quarantined due to alleged irregularities in how the delegates were allowed to vote, which meant the party could only declare the results after the national dispute resolution committee verified the outstanding votes.
The PEC resolved to invite the disputed branches, however, their votes were again quarantined at the provincial conference.
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Lesufi refused to discuss how the quarantined votes would be dealt with when the provincial conference reconvenes in two weeks.
He said the electoral commission dealing with the votes for the top five and the additional PEC members was an independent body and hence would make a determination when the conference reconvenes.
“I don’t want to be seen to be trying to influence the body’s direction if I comment on the matter,” said Lesufi.
He, however, took the opportunity to praise the Gauteng delegates for appointing three women to the provincial top five, saying this should not be a once-off occurrence, but a recurring feature in ANC conferences.
The party also took the opportunity to clarify that Thembinkosi “TK” Nciza would be stepping down as Ekurhuleni secretary after also being appointed provincial secretary over the weekend.
ANC national spokesperson Pule Mabe said, “as per the constitution of the party, once a member is elected into a higher structure, they automatically have to step down from the other position”.
Nciza himself also confirmed that he would be stepping aside from the regional position, and that “the ANC in Ekurhuleni would have to re-elect a secretary”.
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