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ANC Western Cape says it is finally ready to hold its provincial province

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The African National Congress (ANC) in the Western Cape says it is ready to hold its long overdue provincial conference at the end of October. The conference has been postponed several times since August as the provincial ANC has been beset by administrative problems.

Interim Convenor, Lerumo Kalako, says several branches had previously failed to meet.

ANC Western Cape ready to hold provincial conference at the end of October:

Branches in the Southern Cape, the Cape Town Metro, and the Boland have had challenges including lapsed membership, dissolved leadership, or no leader at all, as well as bogus membership.

The Interim Provincial Committee says it has been busy, rebuilding the structures – a task that seems to have been neglected from at least 2016.

But with the October deadline set by the national ANC executive fast approaching, they say the focus is on running a credible process with credible branches.

Kalako says they needed no less than 70% of the branches to be in good standing in order to have convened.

“We wanted to be thorough and strict and follow the system and constitution of the ANC to the letter and depart from the old ways where we were trying to actually jump some stages, or trying to do things that are not supposed to be done: stealing of branches, creating bogus branches and as a result having bogus delegates. The organisation was dead in the province. There were no branches, totally,” says Kalako who has faith that his task to build a credible political party in the province, has been accomplished.

The interim convenor says the fact that the ANC in the Western Cape is going into their provincial conference with 283 branch delegates means there is an organisation existing in the province. He says there are over 300 voting delegates which is something that has not been achieved for a long time in the Western Cape.

Independent political analyst, Asanda Ngoasheng, says the ANC in the province has long had a leadership crisis.

“In February this year, they disbanded one of their biggest branches, the Dullah Omar region, and they’ve been struggling for many years to even convene a conference so that they can elect the provincial leadership, and they can’t even decide on leadership. Some of the regions want Ramaphosa, some want Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and this is part of the contention that is going to make things difficult,” says Ngoasheng.

Kalako says he is convinced that nothing will prevent the provincial ANC congress from going ahead this time around.

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