Deputy Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Mcebisi Skwatsha, who is also an ANC national executive member, is the latest senior party figure to be blamed for upheavals in the Western Cape.
At a fiery press conference the ANC Youth League's Dullah Omar (Cape Town) regional task team (RTT) said Skwatsha and Derek Hanekom were “controlling” ANC provincial secretary Faiez Jacobs.
On Monday the ANC provincial executive formally announced a decision, taken at a contested meeting in the early hours of Sunday, to disband the leadership of the Dullah Omar region.
But the ANCYL has described the disbandment as “thuggish”
Now supporters of Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma are hopeful the ANC's national executive committee will intervene, and reverse the decision taken by the PEC.
A forum which was scheduled for last night, where branches in Dullah Omar were to be addressed by the PEC on their reasons for dissolving the regional leadership, was called off due to the NEC meeting.
RTT member Sibusiso Nkomiyahlaba said: “They are the ones who are backing and influencing him (Jacobs) to do funny stuff, including Richard Dyantyi.
“We are clear; we're going to build the ANC towards 2019 so that we can have better results electorally. Now Skwatsha, Hanekom and Dyantyi are trying to stop us from doing that, and we're expected to smile (like) we're on a honeymoon? We can't do that,” said Nkomiyahlaba.
In 2013, Nkomiyahlaba’s membership of the ANC was suspended, and he was given a suspended sentence by the Cape Town Magistrate's Court after he, along with several other members of the ANCYL, violently disrupted a speech by President Jacob Zuma at the Good Hope Centre.
Today Nkomiyahlaba is an ANC proportional representative councillor in the City of Cape Town and supports, along with the rest of the ANCYL, Dlamini Zuma as the next president of the ANC.
Skwatsha described the attack on him by the youth league as “nonsense”.
“It's nonsense. I'm not controlling anybody.”
The youth league and the executive of the disbanded Dullah Omar region have also attacked Jacobs, saying that he “does not know the ANC”.
For this reason, they insisted that the ANC's provincial executive should instead be disbanded and their decisions reversed.
“We can't continue with a PEC meeting at 2am after the disruptions, for what? That is thuggery, clearly,” said Nkomiyahlaba.
He said the youth league couldn't support a candidate (Ramaphosa) who did not have a position on “the class antagonism of South Africa”.
“You want us to support a person who is loved by white capital monopoly, while our students are not yet experiencing free education. We want economic power. We don't want to be subjected to (the minimum wage of) R3500,” said Nkomiyahlaba.
ANC spokesperson Khusela Sangoni said there would not be any announcement on the NEC meeting, but a briefing tomorrow on the party's state of readiness ahead of its policy conference which starts this weekend.
Jacobs said: “We call on the youth league to focus on youth issues and building their structures and not be captured by issues of succession.”