The ANC national leadership has rushed to court in a bid to rescind a court order that carries a risk of the KZN ANC’s provincial leadership being dissolved.
According to court papers lodged at the South Gauteng high court, ANC regional executive committee (REC) members were allowed to participate in August’s ANC KZN provincial conference despite the REC members having been elected at an irregular conference.
Obtained by one of the ANC members in the region, Nkosinathi Shabalala, in July, the court order directed the party’s national leadership to rerun one of the region’s branch general meetings (BGMs), which was key to the success of the regional conference.
ANC seeking leave to appeal the court order
After ignoring the court order for about four months, the ANC leadership on Monday finally initiated legal processes in a bid to have the court ruling directing the ANC national leadership to rerun the Josiah Gumede region’s Anton Lembede BGM rescinded.
According to papers that the ANC filed at the South Gauteng High Court on Monday, the ruling party is seeking leave to appeal the court order.
“The purpose of this application is to seek an order rescinding the judgment granted by Honourable J. Makume by default dated 20 July …” the ANC, through its lawyers Krish Naidoo Attorneys, said.
While the ANC KZN leadership had attempted to downplay the court order, saying “it’s a dispute involving a single ANC branch”, the order, if left unchallenged, has far-reaching consequences for the ruling party in the province.
According to Shabalala’s application, the ANC Josiah Gumede regional executive committee (REC), which he said was elected at an illegitimate ANC BGM, should be dissolved.
The “illegitimate” Josiah Gumede REC went on to participate in the ANC provincial conference. The participation of the REC in the ANC provincial conference, which elected the current PEC, Shabalala said, rendered the provincial conference irregular.
However, the ANC KZN leadership is adamant that the party’s bid to rescind the court order will succeed.
Briefing the media in Durban on Tuesday, ANC provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo described Shabalala’s complaint as “old”.
The complaint went to the national dispute resolution committee but was dismissed. It’s not the first time he is taking the matter to court; he approached the court before but he was not successful.
The ANC will have that court order rescinded.
A former ANC Ekurhuleni Municipality councillor, Shabalala, who at one point was a member of the influential Ekurhuleni regional executive committee in 2019, had his membership transferred to the party’s Sisonke branch in the Josiah Gumede region.
Shabalala is originally from Ladysmith, where the ANC Sisonke branch is based.
Mtolo told journalists that Shabalala left Ekurhuleni with a cloud hanging over his head as party bosses in the region were investigating him for misconduct.
Then, one day he slept at Ekurhuleni but woke up in Ladysmith.
However, Shabalala dismissed Mtolo’s claims as untrue.
The fact of the matter is that I’m a disciplined member of the ANC who is committed to the organisation’s values and principles. So, this thing that I’m a troublemaker is far removed from the truth.
While Shabalala conceded that around 2019 ANC bosses hauled him before a disciplinary committee, he said the charges against him did not stick.
In the end I was cleared.
The charges stemmed from Shabalala’s participation in a service delivery protest by residents of the Ekurhuleni Municipality in 2019.
On the ANC national leadership’s application for the rescinding of the court order issued in his favour, Shabalala said he has a strong case.
They won’t succeed, they don’t have a leg to stand on.
While the ANC’s application is due to be heard on December 6, the party will first have to convince the court that it was not guilty of contempt of court.
This is after the ANC failed to comply with the July court order giving it 30 days to rerun the Anton Lembede BGM.
If former president Jacob Zuma was sent to prison for contempt of court, I don’t see why members of the ANC national executive committee (NEC) should not go to prison for the same offence.
The matter around the ANC leadership’s failure to comply with the July court order will be heard on December 1.
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