Siyabonga Sithole
The battle lines have been drawn between the Lebogang Maile and Panyaza Lesufi, who are vying for the Chairpersonship position within the provincial structures of the African National Congress as the party holds its Provincial elective conference at The Lakes Hotel and Conference Centre in Benoni.
Newly elected regional chairperson of the ANC Ekurhuleni region, Mzwandile Masina, who is an ally of the Adiwele faction backing Maile, said that 850 voting delegates would take part in the conference and he was sure that Lesufi would not outclass his candidate come voting day.
"He will not win. I know that he will not come close to 500 votes, which will be needed to decide his fate. He does not stand a chance as we are going to win. Even with so much state resources, he will not come close," Masina said.
Masina added that the ‘SiGrand’ faction manned by Lesufi was being too dramatic and desperate to win the conference, accusing them of using state resources to intimidate delegates with police and security measures being put in place.
"What is this here? State resources are being misused to create a war zone with so many security measures to ensure that they win. This is not necessary, to have people and delegates being searched as if it is a war zone," Masina said as he went through the search venue lined with car scanners and more than three inyalas at the search venue.
Masina said Panyaza would not win this conference, even with the support of David Makhura, adding that he will be tweeting about the outlandish security measures being put in place at the conference.
"Watch me. I am going to tweet about this. This is not on," Masina added.
It seems the provincial conference being held this weekend will be incident free, judging by the security measures being put in place.
This as the security checks happening on the other side of the conference venue with cars and guests given the intense security check before going into the main conference venue a kilometre away from the venue.
Police and traffic police are littered at the conference area, which seeing delegates fighting among each other, causing Premier David Makhura to lament the state of affairs calling it a "war zone."
At the venue, delegates belonging to both Masina and Lesufi took turns singing and marching outside the conference centre, singing political slogans in support of their candidates.