ANC Free State embroiled in another court application
A number of disgruntled members of
the African National Congress (ANC) have filed court documents requesting yet
another High Court intervention regarding its provincial leadership
The lawyer for the disgruntled ANC members, Hanno Bekker, applied for an urgent court application to be heard Thursday at the Bloemfontein High Court in a bid to stop the ANC Free State delegation attending the national elective conference at the weekend.
This follows the re-election of Ace Magashule as ANC Free State chairperson, extending his leadership of the provincial ANC structures to 23-years.
Amongst the list of demands in the court papers, the disgruntled ANC Free State members are calling for the court to nullify the provincial conference where Magashule was re-elected; declare that the respondents - including Magashule and the African National Congress (ANC) - acted in a contempt of the court order after an earlier ruling nullified the legitimacy of the Provincial Elective Council (PEC).
Bekker said the court application also calls for the respondents to tell the court why they should not be jailed, should they be found guilty of contravening a court order.
''We've asked the court to interdict all 409 ANC Free State delegates from attending the ANC National Elective Conference (NEC) this weekend and a contempt of court arrest in connection to the PEC''.
Meanwhile, ANC Free State spokesperson, Thabo Meeko - who's also one of the respondents in the disgruntled ANC Free State members' urgent court application - says his confident that the province will go to the national conference.
''ANC Free State voting delegates who've been nominated by properly constituted provincial branches of the ANC must attend the ANC NEC sitting on Saturday.
''I am speaking with authority that the recently elected PEC will attend the ANC NEC despite intentions of people to disallow the ANC NEC sitting with all nine provincial representation."
Bekker says they've also asked the court to interdict provincial voting delegates, branch members and the newly elected PEC from attending the national conference, as they consider the PEC to be illegitimate.
Meanwhile, Energy Minister, David Mahlobo, who was addressing the media on Monday ahead of the ANC NEC alluded to the leadership contestations and endless court battles in the Free State as "nefarious intentions''.
Mahlobo said there is nothing new about taking the ANC to court, adding that as an ANC NEC member he ‘’frowns upon members of the ANC whose first point of call is to resolve internal matters through the courts’’.
This comes after the nullified branch nominations and the Provincial General Council in November, where the ANC Free State members nominated presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma as their preferred candidate.
They also supported Magashule to run as secretary-general of the ANC.
The Free State elective conference has since been postponed twice, after a court ordered declared their branch general meetings unlawful, irregular and unconstitutional.
The PEC was initially ordered by the Bloemfontein High Court to hold the PEC from December 1-3, but the conference was interdicted by another court order last week after the disgruntled ANC members raised issues with 29 branch general meetings in four regions of the province.