No love was lost among the over 100 ANC delegates when the party’s new regional leadership was announced in Jeffrey’s Bay last weekend.
No love was lost among the over 100 ANC delegates when the party’s new regional leadership was announced in Jeffrey’s Bay last weekend.
Fifty-nine branches from all over the Cacadu district assembled in Mentor’s Kraal on Friday to register for the party’s regional conference, which lasted until Sunday. However, only the 41 branches who membership had received a clean audit from party headquarters at Luthuli House were allowed to cast their votes.
Gugile Nkwinti, the Rural Development and Land Reform minister retained his position as chairman and so did his deputy Lungile Mxube. However, Nkwinti went head to head with the party’s former secretary Lulamile "Ten-ten" Pikinini as Nkwinti received 81 votes while Pikinini had 40 votes as four delegates had spoiled their ballots.
Nosisa Siwendu is the party’s new secretary, her deputy is Rolly Dumezweni and the treasurer is Johannes Horbes. Siwendu told Grocott’s Mail that the conference was successful. "Preparations for the conference were made in advance and even the delays we experienced were due to the fact that we were tieing up a few loose ends," she added.
The conference did not start on time because about 18 branches were not cleared by the audit and therefore could not vote. However, they were allowed to take part in deliberations and discussions.
When asked about the new leadership’s plans to deal with the challenges facing the party such as the suspension and expulsion of councillors accused of sympathising with the new political party, Congress of the People (Cope), Siwendu said they will pick up from where their predecessos had left off. "There’s no different [approach]because are always there, but we’ll deal with them as they arise," she said.
According to Scara Njadayi, ANC Youth League regional chairman, there was no hostility among the nominees after the leadership results were announced. "They didn’t see it as rivalry beteween themselves because they know that in the ANC leadership is contested," he explained. "They have the will to unite the party, they demonstrated this by allowing branches which failed the audits to participate in the conference."
He added that this was the first conference in Cacadu where a leadership position was highly contested. He said the new leadership is made up of "comrades who have reputable revolutionary credentials" arguing that Nkwinti got the nod ahead of Pikinini bacause he is a senior member of the party.
He also said that because the new leadership is "task-oriented" they are a perfect team to heal the party from the "character assasination" by Cope members. The regional conference has now paved the way for the district’s full participation at the upcoming provincial conference which is scheduled to take place later this month.
