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ANC Nelson Mandela regional leader Andile Lungisa and Eastern Cape provincial chairperson Oscar Mabuyane have continued their verbal war, with Lungisa this time accusing Mabuyane of working with the Democratic Alliance to destroy the ANC at the Nelson Mandela Bay metro.
Lungisa, a Nelson Mandela Bay metro councillor, is currently out on R10 000 bail after being found guilty of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm following an attack on DA councillor Rano Kayser with a glass water jug.
He has served only 16 days of his two-year sentence and has appealed both the sentence and his conviction.
Lungisa said Mabuyane was the reason the ANC lost the metro to a DA-led coalition after the 2016 local government elections. He said this dated back to the days when Mabuyane was the provincial secretary, but that it continued even under his leadership of the current provincial executive committee, where he is now the chairman.
“People who were at the centre of the collapse of the ANC in the Nelson Mandela metro are the [Mabuyane] grouping. That is why the national leadership brought in Ben Fihla and later Danny Jordaan as an intervention. This is the same grouping that is busy undermining the current regional executive committee in Nelson Mandela metro. They are the people who are causing instability ... it’s the same old people.
“They don’t care whether the ANC is sitting on the opposition benches,” said Lungisa, who was elected chairperson of the region last year. He was forced to vacate the position after the then ANC secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, threw the rule book at him, telling him that he could not contest a lower structure because he was a member of the provincial executive committee at the time.
The former ANC Youth League deputy president claimed that Mabuyane calls Nqaba Bhanga, the DA leader in the province who is also a councillor serving in the mayoral committee, every day.
“Mabuyane speaks with Nqaba Bhanga of the DA on a daily basis on the phone, undermining our efforts to win back our people’s confidence towards 2019 elections in the region. Whatever we are doing in the Nelson Mandela metro is being undermined. You can go to Bhanga’s telephone records, there is constant telephonic communication with Mabuyane.
“Mabuyane needs to tell members of the ANC, especially those in the Nelson Mandela metro, why he is in constant communication with Bhanga and not with the caucus of the ANC. Their interest is for the ANC to not win back the Nelson Mandela metro.
If you go to the metro, the regional secretary is not the one co-ordinating elections at the moment, even though ANC election guidelines stipulates that he does so. He has been sidelined by the provincial executive committee for factional purposes,” Lungisa told City Press.
Mabuyane rubbished Lungisa’s claims.
“That is nonsense. It’s rubbish. Some have said that before but the empirical evidence does not suggest that. I know exactly what was happening at Nelson Mandela metro.
“It’s part of a plan of character assassination and actually trying to blame other people for things that were done by other people in that space,” Mabuyane said.
The ANC provincial chairperson said he did not even know Bhanga’s number.
“I have never spoken to Nqaba Bhanga about anything. I don’t want to respond to things said by Andile Lungisa. I don’t think I will sustain reducing myself to his level. He is lying. He is just speaking nonsense. Actually these are claims you can easily follow up. I don’t even have Nqaba Bhanga’s number. I know exactly what we are doing and where we are going and what we want to achieve,” said an irritated Mabuyane.
Lungisa said Mabuyane was factional and could not talk unity because he has sidelined all those who did not support him before the violent conference in East London’s International Convention Centre in October.
Lungisa said he supported Mabuyane to become the secretary of the province, but when he occupied the position he become factional.
“I am going to write a letter soon to the organisation on this matter, asking why we have people of the ANC communicating and talking to the leader of the opposition. Even the caucus of the ANC at the metro has serious concerns about that,” Lungisa said.
However, Bhanga described Lungisa as delusional and destructive, and laughed off his accusations.
“He has reached a stage of being unruly. I have never heard any conversation with Oscar [Mabuyane] by the way. The only time I tried to reach Oscar was when the ANC was disrupting our Integrated Development Plan meetings around February. That was the only time I tried to reach him, but I couldn’t reach him. I sent him an SMS he never responded,” said Bhanga.
The DA provincial leader said Lungisa must not drag him into the internal politics of the ANC.
“He wants to portray me and Mr Mabuyane as if we have a relationship. I don’t have a relationship with him. I have had it in the past in the student and youth movement, but not at the moment,” he said.
Bhanga said he did not rule out having a working relationship with Mabuyane in the future.
“The only time I will have a relationship with Oscar is next year when he sits there as leader of the opposition and then we are in government as the DA. That’s when we will have a relationship ... when we take over power,” said Bhanga.
