Kimberley - The date for the ANC provincial list conference has been moved to this coming weekend after the national list conference was shifted to December 16.
The provincial list conference was supposed to have been held this past weekend, on Saturday, December 1.
Moving the date will give acting Northern Cape High Court Judge Willem Coetzee time to deliberate on the interdict that was brought by five ANC members in the Province to prevent the nomination of candidates to fill positions in the provincial legislature and Parliament under the direction of the current ANC provincial leadership.
Coetzee reserved judgment in the Northern Cape High Court on Friday.
The preferred list of candidates was released by the ANC Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) last week, which included top five provincial officials at the top of the list.
ANC provincial chairperson, Dr Zamani Saul, is listed as number one on the Province to Province list, followed by ANC deputy provincial secretary Maruping Lekwene, ANC provincial treasurer Fufe Makatong, deputy chairperson Bentley Vass and PEC member Mac Jack.
The legal representative for the ANC regional, provincial and national members, advocate Frans Petersen from the Cape Bar, stated that the ruling could have serious implications.
“If the provincial list conference is prevented from going ahead, the Northern Cape could have no nominations to fill posts in the legislature and Parliament because the national list conference will be going ahead on December 16,” said Petersen.
Petersen believes that only individuals and not the collective had laid complaints. He indicated that the ANC had extensively dealt with all the complaints, including allegations of irregularities as well as the cloning of members.
“The chairperson of the ANC Regional Executive Committee was expelled for running a parallel branch. The aggrieved members were invited to meet with the national dispute resolution committee on numerous occasions. They never attended any meetings. The members dropped the phone call when they were called.”
Petersen advised that if the outstanding branches had not convened in time, they should be excluded from taking part in the provincial list conference.
“The ANC is ready to go to conference, where over 80 percent of the branches were lawfully convened.
“The claim that members did not want to participate for fear of arrests, is hearsay evidence. The people making vague statements were never identified.”
He indicated that the applicants were intent on disrupting branch meetings so that a quorum could not be reached.
Peterson believes that the five ANC members delayed approaching the court for six months despite knowing that the provincial list conference would take place at the end of the year.
The legal representative for the five ANC members, senior advocate Neil Snellenburg from the Free State Bar, stated that correspondence was sent to the provincial leadership to lodge a request to review the 8th provincial conference that was held in Colesberg in 2017.
Snellenburg stated that the election of parallel branches was reported to the former provincial secretary, Saul, and was never dealt with.
“Should the provincial list conference go ahead it will be an illegitimate process where members will be elected into positions of government over the next four years by an unlawfully-elected structure. The leadership has a duty to protect members from harm.”
Snellenburg pointed out that the Independent Electoral Commission had not yet set a date for the national general elections, where the nomination process would be finalised before that date.