It's all systems go for the highly contested 14th ANC Gauteng Provincial Conference which is set to take place from today until Sunday.
More than 1000 voting delegates from five regions are expected to participate in the conference, where a new top five leadership will be elected to lead the party in the province for the next five years.
The conference will take place in Benoni, Ekurhuleni, with many describing it as more than just elections but about the governing party in changing the lives of the people.
The conference is split between two factions in support of current Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi whose supporters goes by the tagline “ SiGrand” and Gauteng Human Settlements MEC Lebogang Maile whose supporters tagline goes by “Adiwele”, both men are vying for the position of Provincial Chairperson..
On Wednesday the ANC Gauteng Provincial Executive Committee hosted a press conference at Ruth First House in Johannesburg where they announced their readiness in hosting the conference.
Maile said they are looking forward to the conference and they are hopeful that it will produce radical policy changes which will impact the lives of the people and help them with the transformation agenda.
“For us the conference is not just about the elections of leadership but should be about looking at how we are doing as a governing party in the province. We want to wish all the delegates well in the deliberations and we will definitely work hard to ensure that it succeeds,” said Maile.
Outgoing Gauteng Deputy Chairperson Lesufi said this is a conference of repositioning this province and also dealing with politics that they are confronted with at this present juncture.
“We are not going to have registration at the conference and spent lots of days on registration. I am quite convinced that part will be covered so that when we start the conference today, we will start,” said Lesufi.
According to a source who is one of the delegates, Ekurhuleni is supporting Maile for chairperson. Mzi Khumalo from West Rand for deputy, TK Nciza for provincial secretary..... And former regional secretary of Tshwane Paul Mojapelo as treasurer.
The source said Lesufi in Ekurhuleni is supported by Doctor Xhakaza who lost the Regional Chairmanship of Ekurhuleni to Mzwandile Masina.
Some of the regions have already elected new structures, outgoing secretary Jacob Khawe said he was happy with the progress made.
Khawe said they have successfully convened four regions in the province, namely Johannesburg, Sedibeng, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane but they were unable to convene West Rand due to the threshold of 70% that they did not reach.
Khawe said they are confident that the conference will go ahead.
“The disputes we are dealing with now are only seven and we have about five appeals with national and all in all will be 12 branches plus the six quarantined branches in Ekurhuleni that makes 18 but we do have 427 branches ready to go to a conference. So resolving the 18 is not a bigger challenge than the 427 confirmed.
“We are also starting early with our conference because we want to focus on the national policy discussion document. We want to make a provincial contribution to the policy conference. We also want our conference to have a political content rather than a conference where people just come for elections,” Khawe said.
He said when it comes to the status to the likes of Ekurhuleni who had problems pertaining to quarantine votes, Khawe said that would be confirmed by the National Executive Committee (NEC) which they are hopeful will be convened before Friday.
“We have done our part, we have had engagements in the province with the task team established, we have also been invited to meet the officials in the country including the president and they have reported to the National Working Committee (NWC) and the NWC will report to the NEC.
Khawe said on Sunday coincides with 67 existence of Freedom Charter, so they decided to invite the President of the ANC Cyril Ramaphosa to come and talk to them about the advancement of the goals articulated by the Freedom Charter and the renewal project of the ANC.