Delayed April conference was meant to be Mosioua Lekota’s swansong

Mosiuoa Lekota during the State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2019 debate at the National Assembly on June 25, 2019 in Cape Town, South Africa. Picture: Gallo Images/Netwerk24/Jaco Marais For the first time since the formation of the Congress of the People (COPE) the party will go to a national elective congress next month without Mosioua Lekota. A congress where he was meant to announce his resignation as leader.

Lekota died on Wednesday in Johannesburg after suffering from a long illness. Lekota was first elected as president at the party’s founding congress in 2008, then at the party’s second congress in 2014, and again at another congress in 2019. Some factions of the party had accused Lekota of clinging to power and evading democracy.

The battle for power inside COPE saw the party dropping from 30 seats in the national assembly in 2009 to just 3 in 2014. The decline continued when COPE received 2 seats in 2019 and no seats at all in the 2024 elections. According to his party’s spokesperson, Pakes Dikgetsi, Lekota had agreed to step back and allow the party to elect its leaders at a congress.

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The Citizencan confirm that COPE was scheduled to hold an elective congress in 2025, but that was delayed due to Lekota’s ill health. “We have been planning this congress for months because we believe in democratic values.” Lekota announced his desire to step back as early as 2024, and the Congress National Committee accepted it. We believe that a true leader must be elected by the people of their organisation.

“So, we said to him he must wait until we go to a congress to replace him, so we have been in the process of preparing for this for some time,” he said. Dikgetsi said the party may further postpone the conference in the aftermath of Lekota’s death, but this would only be confirmed once the party’s leaders had met to chart a way forward. There is also concern that several provinces have not yet convened their congresses.

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