The parallel conferences in Mangaung over the weekend are a serious indictment on the entire Interim Provincial Committee, and all its members.
The Free State Province ANC problems date back to 2002 when South Africa’s former president Kgalema Motlanthe said the Free State movement is virulently divided and mortgaged to business, this he said during the policy conference in Port Elizabeth, in the Eastern Cape and from there, things went further south.
Two factions both shouting unity held parallel conferences at the same time with IPC members deployed electing leaders is just shame.
What is of importance is the ruling party’s struggles to pay its staff over protracted yet two conferences are organized in very posh areas, both with beautiful decorations, question is, what is the source of this wealth?
Why is there such an urgency to hold the conference when there are disputes hanging and at all costs?
The Intervention, by the NEC, as led by Kgalema Motlanthe, has seriously failed the people of the party and has allowed the ANC to collapse, at its birthplace; Mangaung. The Intervention first and foremost, institutionalized factions, by recognizing that each of the factions must forward 20 names, to serve in the IPC.
That, on its own, was the formalization of factions. Whoever the ANC is limited to those in factions only, made a serious mistake. The factional arrangement only served to confirm that the ANC in the Free State cannot find expression outside factions.
Immediately after their “appointment ” and not “elections” into their positions, beneficiaries of a factional arrangement lived true to their creation. Those with access to resources sought to protest their gains, and those with an unfettered desire to access resources wasted no time scrambling for access to the resources.
The cardinal question however remains, “In whose interest are people fighting?
Who stands to benefit from their battles? What, are they fighting over? The answer to all these questions is narrow personal and selfish interests. Nothing to do with advancing a particular ideological discourse or even about advancing the interest of the community. It’s all about “Our time to eat”.
In Lejweleputswa, South African Police Services were called to allegedly stop delegates from entering ANC regional conference venue.
WATCH:
A source at Lejweleputswa conference said.
“We were denied access completely by Dukwana, Khalipha and Toki.
Heavily armed TRT police was called hotlo re leleka.”
Another source said
“Those are legitimate delegates of other lobby group. Because they had numbers more than the preferred lobby group by Dukwana and Khalipa they had to steal it.”
A voice can be heard asking the Police to call Dukwana, the IPC convenor.
This is a developing story.
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