Factionalism continues to threaten the ANC’s control of Nelson Mandela Bay, where battles within the party centre on competition for positions and access to municipal resources.
This has weakened ANC structures in several Eastern Cape municipalities — leading to waning voter support for the party in the province.
This is according to the ANC Veterans League, led by former president Thabo Mbeki.
He addressed Nelson Mandela Bay councillors, as well as members of the ANC Women’s League and Youth League, during a political school session on Sunday.
Mbeki arrived in Gqeberha on Friday, where he met provincial and regional leaders of the veterans’ league and members of the party’s regional task team in the city.
On Saturday, he delivered a keynote address at the launch of the National Dialogue at Nelson Mandela University (NMU).
The theme was “Reimagining and co-creating the Eastern Cape we want — a higher education sectoral contribution for a new vision for SA.”
The launch was followed by a meeting with business leaders in the city on the struggles of operating in the metro.
In his address to party members on Sunday, Mbeki said the ANC, at its 2017 national conference, adopted a resolution to renew itself for survival.
“When the veterans’ league saw that nothing was done to implement that decision, they decided to do something about it,” he said.
“The decision said there must be renewal of the ANC and the national executive committee [NEC] must lead this process and report back in the next national general council.
“The veterans’ league said to implement this decision, this is what we are proposing, and that report was provided to the ANC national leaders before the next conference.”
Mbeki said a detailed plan outlining the steps for the ANC’s renewal process remained at the party’s headquarters and had not been implemented.
“On Friday, we had a meeting with some of the leadership from the regional task teams of the Nelson Mandela Bay and Sarah Baartman regions.
“One of the issues raised there was the negative impact of factionalism.”
Mbeki said when he questioned the reasons behind the infighting, he was told it had little to do with political or ideological differences, but rather with competition for positions and access to resources for personal benefit.
“A question arises from this. Are these people with the ANC?”
Mbeki said the factional battles in the two regions were a conundrum as the ANC planned to hold an elective conference soon.
“The renewal issue is critical for the survival of the movement.
“It should take priority over everything else. Without this, we are unable to solve any of our problems,” he said.
The ANC in Nelson Mandela Bay has postponed its regional conference four times amid factional battles in branches and problems with the membership verification system used to confirm members in good standing.
Sunday’s session was attended by ANC provincial and national officials, who made contradictory remarks on how the party was shaping up in the metro.
ANC Veterans League Eastern Cape chair Humphrey Maxegwana said Mbeki’s visit was organised to educate members about the state of the party.
“The ANC is not in a good space, not by any other thing but weak structures in the region and province,” Maxegwana said.
“A weak organisation affects the structures of government.
“What you see in Nelson Mandela Bay is because of the collapse of structures.
“The structures are there.
“But do we think the people leading those structures are committed to delivering services to the people?”
Maxegwana said people were tired of empty promises and wanted to see real results on the ground before giving the party their vote.
ANC provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukaitobi said the ANC in the city faced many problems.
He said that for the past 16 years, the party had fallen behind opposition parties and could no longer claim to be a leader of society in the Bay.
“We are in a difficult situation because we have been trying to arrange governments, but they have not yielded the requisite outcome to transform this area,” Ngcukaitobi said.
However, the ANC NEC member deployed to the region, Mmamoloko Kubayi, said the party had made progress in improving service delivery under the leadership of mayor Babalwa Lobishe.
Kubayi is also the justice minister.
“This region is due for a conference, and during this time, what needs to be done is to reflect on our challenges and weaknesses,” Kubayi said.
“During the 2024 elections, there were several issues.
“But we were on the back foot, especially around service delivery, regarding water, electricity, lights and human settlements issues.
“We have since made progress in these matters that we can take back to our constituencies in 2026, but we are not complacent because there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done.”
Kubayi said Lobishe and her team had committed to intensifying efforts in the ANC war room to fast-track the resolution of issues such as street lighting, roads and water supply.
“When we go to the local government elections, we’ll have outgoing and incoming councillors, which creates fights.
“We have agreed with councillors that there won’t be bloodshed going to the elections because we understand that the ANC in this metro has no room to fight, and therefore we’ve got to unite and work towards the 2026 victory.”
ANC Women’s League regional secretary Nontombi Nama said members were happy with who was in charge of the party.
Nama said the regional leadership was not functioning due to tensions over the fight for positions in the regional conference.
“We must work as a collective, otherwise we will have problems in the near future.
“The mayor is trying her best with her team to bring services to the people, but there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done in terms of service delivery because community members are not happy.”
On Saturday, at NMU, Mbeki challenged academics across SA to be at the forefront of solutions to problems gripping the nation.
The launch of the National Dialogue was attended by various representatives in government and higher education.
Mbeki said 30 years into democracy there was an economic, political, education, crime and corruption crisis.
He urged academics to play a part in coming up with solutions.
“Last year, I looked at political manifestos and thought ‘we won’t get any answers from all the manifestos about these critical challenges, but the masses will provide the answers’,” he said.
“By answers, I don’t mean wish lists such as looking at the economy and saying it must create jobs, reduce unemployment and poverty.
“While all these are correct, they form part of a wish list and not a programme to address them.”
To answer the questions, Mbeki said, SA citizens needed to know what had to be done practically to address challenges.
“The answer won’t come from political parties or anyone else except the people.”
The Herald
