Hours after Antonio Carels withdrew his candidacy for the post of regional secretary, the ANC’s Dr WB Rubusana region said he would fill the vacancy in the provincial legislature left by his successor in the party. During the ANC’s long-awaited fifth regional conference in East London at the weekend, Anele Lizo clinched the regional secretary’s job with 123 votes. His opponent, Mbasa Satyi, received the nod from 87 of the 213 voting delegates.
Lizo, who has served in the Eastern Cape legislature since 2024, now takes up the full-time role of ANC regional secretary. The region’s chair and BCM mayor Princess Faku, who retained her position on an uncontested basis, announced during her closing remarks that the region wanted Carels to fill the vacancy left by Lizo. The conference, which was initially expected to be held in May, was repeatedly delayed over disputes on how branch general meetings were being conducted.
Faku said: “Comrade Gee [Lizo] who’s just been elected as the regional secretary of the ANC, was a member of the provincial legislature. He sacrificed … we believe in his leadership. “I want to declare that the position comrade Gee had will be filled by someone from Rubusana … comrade Carels must go and replace Gee in the provincial legislature.” In the protracted runup to the conference, two factions, the Ilanga grouping led by Faku and Carels’ Imvula group, had battled it out.
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Faku said: “There is no more Ilanga and Imvula. There’s only one ANC.” She said she and Carels had talked things out and resolved to put the party first. Carels, a member of the ANC for 22 years, said he was available to serve in any capacity the party chose. “It took us a long time to complete the processes of the conference, but finally, we are here.
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