Cope has continued to show signs of implosion, with its Gauteng provincial conference deteriorating into a fist-fight between supporters of the party's leaders, Mosiuoa Lekota and Mbhazima Shilowa.
Police were called in after the rival delegates - one group loyal to party leader Lekota, the president, and the other to his deputy, Shilowa - physically attacked each other after a stand-off over the conference's credentials.
Shilowa, the main speaker, was booed off the podium when he tried to address the gathering in Vereeniging.
Saturday's confrontation follows equally violent regional conferences throughout Gauteng.
Police had to be called in at the Ekurhuleni regional congress last month.
The Tshwane conference also deteriorated into a clash between rival factions supporting either Lekota or Shilowa.
The two leaders are due to square up at COPE's inaugural electoral conference in Joburg later this month, when both expect to be elected party president.
At the heart of the stand-off are allegations and counter-allegations of membership fraud between the factions.
A delegate who attended Saturday's conference told The Sunday Independent that several delegates had to be treated in hospital for injuries they received in the fighting.
"There were concerns from the floor after some comrades were locked out of the conference and some branches - which had failed their audit - were allowed to participate.
"Then the chairs started flying and people were trying to run for cover and some were jumping out of windows," said the delegate.
This was corroborated by a member of Cope's interim leadership in the province..
On Saturday night Shilowa confirmed that he had been booed and that delegates had fought at the conference.
"Violence must be condemned by everyone," Shilowa said.
"I don't understand why some people want to stop a democratic process... to stop the conference.
"Their primary goal was to break up the conference, to make sure it doesn't take place," said Shilowa.
But he vowed that COPE would not be derailed by a "small group" of unruly members.
Shilowa was to officially start his presidential campaign today.
He was scheduled to address a rally in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape this afternoon.
To add to the friction, a senior Cope leader was embarrassed when her private e-mails were leaked to the media.
In one in one of the e-mails she referred to Lekota as a monkey who was "f***** in the brain".
Cope's administrative whip Lolo Mashiane - a Shilowa backer - was forced to apologise to Lekota.
Meanwhile, the party has appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers to audit its messy books, following the resignation of its auditor.
The audit firm began its work on Friday and has to race against time to get Cope's books in order before the end of the month, when the party is expected to submit its audited statements to Parliament.
Last week, Lekota accused Shilowa of mismanaging about R20-million allocated to the party by parliament and the Independent Electoral Commission.
Lekota later apologised for his outburst.
But a senior Cope source said the party had yet to quantify how much they would pay Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
"It's still very early, they have just started (auditing).
"The other thing is that they will be charging us per account so we'll only know the full amount when the audit is done" said the source.
Lekota has demanded that the party's MPs, led by Shilowa, the party's parliamentary chief whip, produce proof of how the allocated funds were spent.
This comes amid allegations of fraud and corruption over tenders approved by the parliamentary team.
Mashiane came under fire from Lekota's supporters after she awarded a R500 000 branding contract to Cope Youth secretary, Malusi Booi's company - without it going to tender.
Another worry for Cope is the lack of accountability by the party's MPLs in the provincial legislatures. In provinces such as Limpopo, the party could not afford to open constituency offices, despite the money having been allocated for this.
In the Eastern Cape, the party came under fire from members after provincial leaders hired provincial secretary Archie Ralo as a Chief of Staff in the legislature, at a reported salary of about R600 000 per year.