The quite influential leader of the South African Communist Party in Mpumalanga will emerge as party provincial secretary for a fourth term when the party holds its provincial congress in few days to come, a spokesman has said on Monday.
Provincial spokesman Lesetja Digkale said provincial party leader Bonakele Majuba and the whole top 6 structure will be elected “as it is”, only the position of chairman will be filled when voting delegates decide.
“We are happy with his leadership,” Dikgale said just before noon on Monday.
“We want him to continue to lead us together with the current leadership and that’s why we have decided that he comes again,” he said.
The congress will take place in Mbombela from 9 to 11 September 2016, which is this coming weekend, and Majuba, his two deputies Lucky Mbuyane and Mandla Tibane, deputy chairman Andries Mnisi and treasurer Sisani Shabangu will retain their posts after they were elected in the 2013’s 8th provincial congress.
Dikgale didn’t say who will take the chairman post, saying “delegates decide on those issues”.
The move to fill a chairman position in the party comes after the sacking of Eric Kholwane as provincial chairman by Majuba last year.
A disciplinary hearing last year found Kholwane guilty and was given “a lighter sentence” but Majuba stripped Kholwane of his powers as provincial chairman of the SACP in order “to start afresh as an ordinary member”.
Kholwane had been caught in the middle of a cat fight between Mpumalanga ANC chairman David Mabuza and Majuba after he accused Majuba, who had since been removed from the Mpumalanga legislature by Mabuza, of using the SACP platform to attack ANC leaders.
The SACP in the province has been calling on Mabuza’s head to roll as chairman of the ANC in the province since 2010, saying he was a corrupt politician and didn’t want a healthy alliance relationship.
But SACP leaders have been also accused of being power-hungry and of using the SACP to force Mabuza out of office using former ANC national treasurer Mathews Phosa, who was Mpumalanga premier in former President Nelson Mandela’s 1994-1999 administration.
“We expect more than 400 delegates to attend the 9th congress and we ask journalists to please collect their accreditation tags at the eHlanzeni TVET College on Friday before 10am because the congress is expected to start at 3 in the afternoon,” Dikgale said.
“Our theme for this congress is communist cadres to the front, unite working class communities and our movement, drive the second, more radical phase of our democratic transition,” he said.
(edited by MLM)
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