Johannesburg - A veterans league showdown looms as the ANC Veterans' League (ANCVL) holds its national conference this weekend to elect new leaders.
The showdown will see former ANCVL president Snuki Zikalala go head-to-head against party veteran Tony Yengeni for the league president position.
The elections come two years after the ANC national working committee (NWC) confirmed the disbandment of the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) and threw its support behind a process of amalgamating it with the rival MK National Council (MKNC).
The league of the veterans has subsequently been run through a task team that last year supported President Cyril Ramaphosa’s second term as ANC president and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka as its preferred candidate for party deputy president.
The elective congress for the veterans comes just a week after the ANC Women’s League elected Sisisi Tolashe as its president, while three weeks ago the ANC Youth League elected its new president, Collen Malatsi, after eight years without a formal structure. The party elders organised under the Veterans League are following suit this weekend.
This week, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula said this gathering of party stalwarts was not giving them sleepless nights like that of the youth and women’s leagues.
"This conference of Boet Snuki Zikalala will not give us a problem. I will sleep today because it will sit peacefully. These elders like contesting each other, but they can be called to order quickly. Among others, this workshop was supported by the Veterans’ League, and we must give them a round of applause. Intervening in the municipalities is their idea," Mbalula said.
This is the third Veterans’ League Congress since its formal inception. Befoere the ANC's 54th national conference held in Nasrec, the veterans league had also endorsed Gwen Ramokgopa for secretary-general, Febe Potgieter-Gqubule as her deputy, and Barbara Creecy as treasurer-general.
The Star