Kimberley - In the latest leadership battle facing the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), the party shot down the elective congress outcome held in Kimberley, Northern Cape where new leader Mzwanele Nyhontso was elected.
In a statement issued by spokesman Kenneth Mokgatlhe on Monday, the party said the conference held over the weekend was illegal.
''The PAC learnt with regret of some its members organised an illegal meeting in Kimberley and started electing themselves as the leadership of the PAC. This is a sham meeting and PAC condemns it with the contempt it deserves,'' Mokgatlhe said.
''All members of the PAC are called back to the fold of the PAC to increase chances of taking over in the 2019 national elections. We are not appalled by actions of these rogue members because they've been distracting the party from 1994, echoing messages of divisions not only within the party but also outside the PAC.''
The PAC has in recent years been marred by leadership squabbles and court challenges between Narius Moloto, Letlapa Mphahlele and Mbinda. Moloto was appointed president following the expulsion of Mbinda, who was elected in 2015. The other former PAC leader Themba Godi formed his own party - the African People's Convention (APC) in 2007 after he was expelled from the PAC. Godi is a member of Parliament and the chairman of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa).
Moloto said the Kimberley conference was ''null and void'' as there were no branch delegates.
''How can they say they invite me as an individual? That thing... as far as the PAC is concerned, is null and void. We’ve already opened a fraud case for their usage of the forged letterheads of the PAC and the name and the logos of the PAC. They do not have an authority nor right to do so,'' Moloto told the SABC television news channel.
The PAC was formed in Soweto in 1959 with Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe as its founding leader.