Branch meeting deadline extended

EASTERN Cape ANC bosses have extended the deadline for the party’s branches in Nelson Mandela Bay to nominate leaders for their elective conference to the end of next month. The party’s provincial secretary, Oscar Mabuyane, said provincial executive committee (PEC) members took the decision to extend the deadline by another month at a meeting in Port Elizabeth last week. Mabuyane said the branches were battling to meet the 70% threshold, which according to the ANC’s constitution is the required quorum to convene an elective conference. “The initial deadline for branches to hold branch general meetings (BGMs) and annual general meetings was the end of this month,” he said. “We have since realised that the branches won’t be able to meet the 70% required threshold by the end of this year and that is why the PEC resolved to extend the deadline to the end of January,” he said. The delays may have far-reaching implications for the party’s preparations for next year’s local government elections, which have been provisionally set for May. The battle for the metro is expected to be keenly contested as statistics show that the ANC’s support base in the region, which covers Port Elizabeth Uitenhage and Despatch, has dropped. Support for the ANC in the region was also severely affected by the recall of former president Thabo Mbeki in 2008, which resulted in the formation of the Congress of the People (COPE).

Provincial leaders have admitted publicly that the formation of COPE had a negative effect on membership. The party narrowly held onto the municipality in the 2011 local elections, securing only 51.9% of the vote‚ down from 66.5% in 2006. The numbers declined even further in last year’s general election, with the ANC securing only 49.5% of the vote in the area. There were more problems at branch level, where membership numbers dropped even further due to factional fights and gate-keeping. Gate-keeping is used in ANC branches to eliminate opposition when the party has to elect leaders. President Jacob Zuma and his executive disbanded the ANC regional executive committee late last year and replaced it with a task team due to the factional fights. Mabuyane said the party was targeting the Christmas break for more branches to convene their BGMs. It was hoped that by the end of January all branches would have held their branch meetings and nominated delegates to the conference.