Johannesburg – The eThekwini region, the ANC’s biggest in terms of membership, is emerging as the launching pad of the push-back campaign against the party’s contentious step-aside resolution.
As ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule prepared to consult former president Jacob Zuma in Nkandla, Kwa- Zulu-Natal is emerging as a stronghold of the campaign to thwart a resolution to force the former Free State premier and former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede to step aside after being criminally charged. Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the Free State and North West were also expected to throw significant support behind Magashule, although those provinces have a strong support base for President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Supporters of Gumede told Sunday World that all hell would break loose should the national executive committee (NEC) impose the step-aside resolution on Gumede.
“As far as we know, Mam Zandile Gumede underwent all party processes and was cleared by the provincial integrity commission. So, the recent NEC decision does not aff ect her nor the region,” said Ntando Khuzwayo, the spokesperson for ANC branches backing Gumede.
“We are currently hard at work, consolidating our support in branches ahead of the regional elective conference. ” He said they have yet to hear from the provincial executive committee as to what the implication of the NEC’s step aside resolution was on party members who have already been summoned to provincial disciplinary structures.
“We are not taking the pronouncement by the NEC as the official position of the ANC until the branch secretaries and chairpersons have been consulted.
“The provincial executive committee must tell us if the work already done by the integrity commission, which exonerated comrade Zandile, should be regarded as null and void. “Apart from this, the step aside resolution has an absurdity because it goes against the rules of natural justice. If you take a decision that someone must step aside based on allegations, you are presuming the person guilty, thereby subverting the court process,” added Khuzwayo.
Mthokozisi Nojiyeza, another Gumede loyalist, lamented that the step-aside resolution was prejudicial to Gumede as the forerunner in the upcoming eThekwini ANC regional elective conference.
“Our view is that if comrade Zandile Gumede is ordered to step aside, the elective conference must also be postponed until the court case has been concluded. “If the conference sits without her contesting, the ANC should be prepared to nullify its outcome to accommodate her because she would have been unduly victimised,” said Nojiyeza.
Nojiyeza is an ANC ward 80 councillor covering Inanda under the eThekwini municipality. Together with Gumede, they are implicated in the R308-million Durban Solid Waste tender fraud. Meanwhile, eThekwini mayor Mxolisi Kaunda has also broken his silence on the ongoing ANC factional battles.
Over the years, Kaunda, who is the former MEC for transport and community safety and liaison, has kept a low profile, opting to raise issues within party internal structures and is regarded as a voice of reason.
But on Monday, Kaunda lost his temper and made an impassioned plea to party members, urging them to rescue the party from the Stellenbosch mafias.
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Kaunda was delivering a speech during the funeral service of eThekwini councillor and Umkhonto weSizwe veteran Bheki Thabethe, held in his ancestral village of Emgababa on the KZN south coast.
“We are losing voters and loyal members of the ANC because we are afraid to do the right thing and rescue the ANC from the Stellenbosch capitalists.
“Soon we will have no organisation to call our own if we do not regroup and fight back. Comrades, let us protect the ANC,” said Kaunda, who spoke in IsiZulu.
He added in the video clip that the new ANC leadership under Ramaphosa had handed over the powers to lead the country to a capitalist clique that is hellbent on dividing the faction-riddled governing party.
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