With the provincial ANC conference a month away, ANC Eastern Cape chair Oscar Mabuyane has urged the party’s elected officials to focus on serving the public rather than fussing over conferences. Only Amathole and Sarah Baartman regional conferences are yet to sit, while the provincial conference is set to sit in late March in East London. Delivering his political overview at the party’s provincial lekgotla on Sunday, Mabuyane discouraged party members, more specifically those who hold offices, from prioritising the conference over their official duties, as, he said, the conference season “defocuses leadership”.
Mabuyane is in the running for a third term as the party’s provincial chair. He is set to have a stiff challenge from his once close ally, Lulama Ngcukayitobi, the party’s provincial secretary. “I know comrades that conference season defocuses leadership and members of the ANC, as they tend to take the eye away from the ball,” Mabuyane said.
“The ANC is the only political party that attracts huge media and public interest when it holds its elective conferences, whether at a regional or provincial level. “And sadly, even members of opposition parties have an opinion about who should lead the ANC.” Before the provincial conference, the ANC is set to soon have two regional conferences, in Amathole and Sarah Baartman regions, with Mabuyane urging party members to behave as leaders. He said they should not act as if they were “bewitched” when they were going to conferences.
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“Let us stop going to these ANC conferences as if we are bewitched, where you find party members plucking at each other and party leaders criticising the ANC that they are part of. “That is not how people who want to lead the ANC must behave, particularly not at this time when the movement is under extreme pressure from counter-revolutionary forces,” Mabuyane said.
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