He promised to deliver delegates from Nkangala to the special provincial congress.
Former member of the provincial executive committee of the ANC in the Mpumalanga province, Sarel Mtsweni, has announced a political comeback, throwing his name in the hat for the position of deputy provincial chairman.
He attended an event campaigning for Peter Nyoni to be David Mabuza’s successor in the Mpumalanga province held at KwaMhlanga over the weekend.
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Mtsweni told supporters during the meeting held at a church in the KwaMhlanga area that they will work and make sure Nkangala delegates vote for Nyoni.
“We will deliver Nkangala I must just say comrades,” Mtsweni told supporters.
“I want to make an undertaking that we will deliver Nkangala,” he said to applause.
“Nkangala is a complex region but ourselves we have mastered it in terms of where you have to touch when you want it. We are still going to have a Siyanqoba rally of delegates and not of pretenders. If you are a pretender stay away,” said Mtsweni.
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This means Mtsweni will face-off with the Mandla Ndlovu faction that wants Nkangala leader Speedy Mashilo as the deputy chair.
It also wants Pat Ngomane to serve as the new secretary and ANCYL national deputy leader Desmond Moela as additional member of the PEC.
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The special provincial congress will be held in April 2018 and is expected to be fiercely contested – with a large number of contestants vying for the same post Mabuza left.
Mtsweni on Sunday used the stage to call on leaders in the movement to raise the bar of getting each and every member to understand the organisation and that should happen through knowing its founders and past leaders.
“Let’s raise the political consciousness, let’s raise the bar of understanding comrades” he said.
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“You won’t know the movement if you do not know the founders of it such as Pixley ka Seme, Charlotte Maxeke and ANCYL founders like Anton Lembede. Maxele was at the founding congress of the ANC in 1912,” Mtsweni said.
Nyoni is the man who led the Save ANC Mpumalanga that was opposed to Mabuza returning to power as provincial chair for a third term and calling fortransparency, accountability and end to nepotism and corruption.
Taking to the stage on Sunday, Nyoni said there is basically nothing wrong with the ANC “but a lot wrong with its leadership”.
“We must be able to understand the priority and the power of the process of leadership and character. We must understand that character is the foundation key of 21st century leadership. We will not survive the next 10 years if we continue the way we are going, even across the world, because the defects of character are so deep that there is not way we will survive if we don’t address it,” Nyoni said.
Ex-ANCYL spokesman Zwelo Masilela, who attended the KwaMhlanga Sunday event, said Nyoni is the only man who can reclaim the ANC’s lost values and help renew and rebuild it.
“Comrades,” Masilela said, “we have been quiet for a very long time. The problems of the ANC have been inherited by the ANCYL.
“We don’t have an ANCYL. It is only an ANCYL in legal terms because it is a registered political organisation but in reality it is non-existent,” he said.
(edited by MLM)
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