Former Dullah Omar regional secretary Vuyiso “JJ” Tyhalisisu emerged as the surprise winner for the post of provincial chairperson for the ANC Western Cape at the conference at Cape Town International Convention Centre.
Tyhalisisu trounced the party’s leader in the provincial legislature, Cameron Dugmore, with 311 votes to 282.
Outgoing interim provincial committee (IPC) convenor Lerumo Kalako declined a nomination by the branches.
Sharon Davids was elected as the provincial deputy chairperson, and former West Coast regional secretary Neville Delport claimed the secretary position.
Ayanda Bans was elected as the deputy provincial secretary, while Derek Appeal was elected unopposed as the provincial treasurer.
There were 643 delegates at the conference with 596 delegates and 61 delegates representing the leagues.
ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said party structures were now holding their last conferences before the elections next year.
The Western Cape ANC had been run by the interim provincial committee for the last four years after the national executive committee disbanded the provincial executive committee in 2019.
Kalako painted a bleak picture of a provincial leadership structure torn apart by factionalism.
He claimed factionalism was sponsored and funded by national leaders.
“As the convenor of the ANC in this province, probably known as the weakest province of the ANC, I can tell you that the root cause of the state of the ANC in this province is... factionalism,” Kalako said.
“The composition of this IPC was along factional lines and those who were mandated by the former NWC [national working committee] to implement the decision of the former national executive committee were highly factionalised.”
He said ANC had lacked resources to run political programmes, and donors in the province refused to be associated with the party in Western Cape.
“[However] the state of the organisation and the dire situation of our finances were not as devastating on the political programme as the high levels of factionalism in the province” Kalako said.
“Factionalism has split our branches in half that we now even depend on non-ANC members, nominated in community meetings and not meetings of the ANC, to serve as councillors and only afterwards become ANC members.”
He said the IPC members deployed to the six regions lacked political experience and political maturity, while not a single group of deployees had submitted a regional report in the past four years.
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