The ANC’s national election committee, chaired by former president Kgalema Motlanthe, has assumed responsibility for handling all disputes and appeals from aggrieved party members in the Eastern Cape, effectively removing the party’s National Dispute Resolution Committee (NDRC) from the process.
In revised instructions issued to ANC structures across the province, Motlanthe directed that all disputes and appeals must now be submitted directly to the election committee with immediate effect. Members have been given just 48 hours to lodge their complaints.
The submissions must be addressed to Motlanthe and sent through the committee’s secretary, Chief Livhuwani Matsila.
The decision comes amid growing tensions within the ANC in the Eastern Cape, where several branches have expressed a lack of confidence in both the NDRC and the provincial leadership to handle disputes impartially. According to party insiders, some branches believe previous intervention by the party’s national headquarters compromised the fairness of internal processes.
The latest development follows a series of legal battles that exposed divisions within the governing party. Aggrieved ANC grassroots structures recently secured victories in two separate court cases against both the provincial and national leadership over processes linked to the provincial conference that had initially been scheduled for March.
The Eastern Cape High Court and the High Court ruled in favour of the aggrieved members, finding fault with aspects of the processes challenged before the courts.
The intervention by the election committee comes as the ANC prepares for the upcoming local government elections expected in November. Some branch members fear a repeat of the events leading up to the 2021 local government elections, when candidates nominated through branch processes were allegedly replaced by politically connected individuals.
Frustration within sections of the party continues to mount, with aggrieved branches planning a protest outside the ANC’s Eastern Cape provincial headquarters
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