In a statement issued on Friday‚ the ANC said that the conference would take place from Thursday to Saturday. The long-awaited ANC KwaZulu-Natal provincial conference is finally set to go ahead.
This comes after the party was barred by the Pietermaritzburg High Court from holding the provincial conference last month because of infighting between pro-president Cyril Ramaphosa supporters and those who support former president Jacob Zuma.
ANC’s provincial task team coordinator Sihle Zikalala announced on Friday that the three-day provincial conference will now take place following that court delay. A press conference to announce full details has is expected to take place on Monday.
Last month chaos erupted at the party’s provincial conference‚ where national party chairperson Gwede Mantashe was booed as he took to the podium. Mantashe‚ who was deployed by the party’s top brass to deliver a keynote address‚ was prevented from speaking despite attempts by Zikalala to plead with pro-Zuma supporters to stop chanting and singing.
It is understood that Mantashe was booed because he was aligned with Ramaphosa leading up to the party’s national conference in December last year.
Disgruntled ANC members — who claimed to represent 44 branches of 88 in the Moses Mabhida region — rushed to court on the Friday afternoon as the conference was about to get underway to apply for an urgent interdict to stop it from going ahead.
They succeeded in their application to interdict the conference.
But after negotiations behind closed doors‚ the ANC delegates representing the three aggrieved regions and the provincial task team have this week settled their matter out of court.
Last month’s interdicted conference was called after a pervious successful court challenge by so-called “ANC rebels”‚ who petitioned to the Pietermaritzburg High Court that the outcomes of the 2015 KZN elective conference should be declared null and void – a petition that was ultimately successful.
It is widely expected that Zikalala will be re-elected to his powerful position of provincial ANC chairman‚ without opposition.
