Durban - The ANC national leadership was to return to KwaZulu-Natal on Monday as part of efforts to build unity in the fractious province.
The visit comes as plans are afoot to hold the elective conference for the eThekwini region in the coming weeks.
It is the third time the national leadership has visited KZN, in particular eThekwini, this year, with the region having failed to hold a successful congress in past year.
When national leadership visited eThekwini in June, their meeting was said to have discussed issues of unity and cohesion in the province, the ANC’s biggest.
On Sunday, ANC national spokesman Zizi Kodwa confirmed Monday’s visit, but said it was one of many this year.
“What the ANC has been doing is to come back and forth to strengthen its base. Even if there are no problems, you must always go back to the base,” Kodwa said.
“It (the visit) is part of the functions of the national executive committee,” he said, referring to the monitoring of lower structures in the party.
The ANC has paid visits to other regions, such as Nelson Mandela Bay and Buffalo City in the Eastern Cape in recent months.
Provincial secretary Sihle Zikalala would not be drawn into commenting on Monday’s visit.
“There is no reason we should talk to the media about meetings of our structures on party internal matters,” Zikalala said.
But, Kodwa also said unity would take centre stage in meetings of the national leadership with party structures during their visit.
“When we meet, we will discuss unity of the ANC, how best we deliver services to the people of KZN, both urban and rural,” he said.
“KZN is important to the ANC. We can’t allow any form of instability,” he said in reference to the province being the biggest voting bloc and province in the country.
Kodwa said instability could not be allowed, whether it manifested itself in leadership preferences in branches or regions.
“We affirm our commitment to democratic principles that members have a right to choose leadership,” he said.
Kodwa’s comments come against a background of brewing divisions in the party’s structures in this province, which have taken the form of the support for either KZN chairman Senzo Mchunu or provincial secretary Sihle Zikalala.
At the centre of these divisions is the eThekwini region, which has failed to hold a successful congress after at least three attempts at having the conference were made.
Linked to this is the support branches and members are throwing behind their preferred candidates - eThekwini mayor James Nxumalo and former regional treasurer Zandile Nxumalo - who form the bedrock of a raging succession debate ahead of the provincial congress to be held next year.
Nxumalo and Gumede are seen to be engaged in a proxy war, with each being linked to camps of Mchunu and Zikalala, vying for the provincial chairmanship. This in turn, feeds into the broader succession debates for ANC national leadership in 2017.
Apart from eThekwini, the Lower South Coast region has its fair share of problems with some branches wanting the current leadership disbanded and alleging irregularities in the conference held in Port Shepstone last November.
Even the Musa Dladla region (incorporating Richards Bay, Nkandla and other towns) has had its own problems. It had previously included calls for the removal of incumbent Musa Dladla mayor, Thembeka Mchunu, from leading the KZN Premier’s spousal office.
Daily News