ANC spokesman Pule Mabe says the party has not canceled or postponed all Gauteng regional conferences, as reported. In an interview with Talk Radio 702 on Monday night, Mabe said ANC secretary general Ace Magashule was quoted out of context when he told the media on Monday.
"We have decided to postpone all regional conferences of Gauteng which were supposed to take place this coming weekend because we wanted to make sure that, as the court ruled, we must strive to resolve our matters internally and politically."
According to News24, Magashule told reporters on the sidelines of the party's national executive committee (NEC) meeting on Wednesday,
"Gauteng is ready with conferences. There were some people who marched here from the West Rand, we have taken their grievances [into account] and we have decided to postpone all regional conferences in Gauteng that were supposed to take place this weekend."
But Mabe told talk show host Karima Brown that the quote was taken out of context.
"What the secretary general was saying was effectively taken out of context. There is no conference in Gauteng that has been stopped, canceled or postponed. There are just a number of things that need to be dealt with. As matters stand, all regional conferences in Gauteng are expected to sit at the time and the cut of date that has been set for such to sit...
The National Executive Committee did not arrive at a decision to stop conferences... There is a meeting tomorrow [Tuesday] so that they can make sure they begin attending to the readiness of conferences....the final decision of the NEC would then be conveyed when we are done with such meetings," Mabe said.
According to Daily Maverick, the NEC met to discuss the state of its provincial structures on Monday. There are challenges to the legitimacy of the leadership in the North West, the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.
Most NEC members reportedly opted to take a conciliatory approach to dealing with conflict in the provinces instead of having a showdown between factions. Leadership in the North West, Free State and to some extent, KwaZulu-Natal are reportedly aligned to a faction close to former President Jacob Zuma.
A decision on who should replace Supra Mahumapelo as North West premier was reportedly deferred.
The party is dealing with a string of court challenges in various provinces. According to Eyewitness News (EWN), the Eastern Cape province contested its leadership's legitimacy in court on Monday, while there are threats from the Free State to do the same.
The KwaZulu-Natal conference was interdicted two weeks ago.