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January 13 2018 will prove to be the real test for the new provincial executive committee of the ANC in the Eastern Cape.
On that day the newly elected president of the governing party will address party loyalists at the Absa Stadium in East London. This is where the party’s January 8 statement will be held and the contested Eastern Cape provincial executive committee led by Oscar Mabuyane, which was only elected in September 2017, would have to prove to everyone that they are up to the challenge of organising and hosting an event of this magnitude.
The last time the January 8 statement was held in East London in the same venue, it was 2009 and was given by former ANC president Jacob Zuma. The attendance was so overwhelming that both the main Absa stadium and the adjacent Jan Smuts stadium, which was the overflow venue, were both filled to capacity.
The new leadership will also be mindful of the poor attendance at the Nelson Mandela Stadium in Port Elizabeth in April 2016 ahead of the local government elections when the province hosted the national Siyanqoba rally. Siyanqoba, is an isiZulu word, which means, we are going to conquer. But the ANC did not conquer Nelson Mandela Bay, as the metro fell into the hands of a coalition government led by the Democratic Alliance.
This is not the only task up ahead for the new provincial executive committee because they have an even bigger job of unifying the province following a bruising year end with two conferences, first in the province and then the national conference in December. The province has been split between supporters of premier Phumulo Masualle, who supported Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Mabuyane’s supporters who wanted deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa to lead the ANC.
Mabuyane, the new provincial chairperson has already extended an olive branch, inviting Masualle to the provincial executive committee as an ex-officio member and calling on his supporters to embrace the new leadership.
No doubt 2018 will be a real test for Mabuyane and Masualle, with the later having already filed an appeal within the ANC challenging the legitimacy of the conference that elected the former.
Calls have been made by former ANC youth league convener, Mziwonke Ndabeni for Mabuyane to take up his rightful place at the Bhisho Legislature as premier which would then mean the recall of Masualle as premier. The same situation happened in KwaZulu-Natal after the Sihle Zikalala led a provincial executive committee that won the 2015 elective conference which has since been nullified by the courts. The ANC then recalled then-premier Senzo Mchunu, who had also been contesting the position of chairperson.
With Masualle not attending party meetings of the provincial executive committee and failing to account when he was invited by the it to explain his role on the Mandela funeral scandal it would be interesting how the relationship between the two camps unfold in the coming year.
Already Mabuyane has promised he would not tolerate ill-discipline and expressed frustration on members of the state failing to attend party gatherings since they were elected, a thinly veiled reference to Masualle and cabinet members loyal to him.
At the party’s provincial general council in November, Mabuyane said they would not allow this situation to continue, which means 2018 would see another year of political contestation within the governing party. Mabuyane told the provincial general council that there was only one provincial executive committee in the province.
“We waste time doing things that we are not supposed to be doing because we are preoccupied with our selfish interests. We should not allow that comrades to be the order of the day.
“We have been observing with keen interest over sometime. We have been having a lot of provincial meetings, provincial executive committees and others. There are comrades who continue to deliberately not attend the provincial executive committee meetings because they go public and say they don’t accept the provincial executive committee, even against the advice they were given by the national working committee officials here, to say it not your responsibility to say so.
“We have a problem with comrades who are leading the state, senior comrades of our movement who are always missing in action. We continue engaging on policy discussions, key people who are deployed by the African National Congress are not showing an interest or they prioritise other things.
“This cannot be allowed. This cannot continue unabating. It’s going to be stopped. And comrades will understand that the ANC is bigger than them. It’s our movement. It’s a democratic organisation that must lead all of us. When it has elected it’s leadership we must all abide and help each other achieve better for the ANC,” Mabuyane said, without mentioning any leader by name.
Although the Grahamstown High Court delivered a judgment in favour of Mabuyane and his provincial executive committee four days before the national conference and dismissed the applications brought by 11 party members who wanted the court to declare the provincial conference null and void. It is still up to the national executive committee to affirm the structure.
And if it does, 2018 could see Masualle being forced out of the Bhisho State House and replaced by Mabuyane, his one time ally. And to do this, the Mandela funeral scandal which he and his director-general are at centre of could be used as a proxy to achieve just that.
So, the upcoming year promises to be yet another roller coaster of a ride with the new provincial executive committee promising to flush out all the foreign tendencies within its ranks, including ill-discipline, gate keeping and vote buying. This while the other losing faction is expected to fight back with everything they have especially if their people are being purged in from senior positions.
