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Illustrative image. Photos: ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule. (Photo: Leila Dougan / Fund: Adobestock / President Cyril Ramaphosa. (Photo: EPA-EFE / CHRISTIAN MARQUARDT / POOL)
The meeting is reported to have turned into chaos as opposing factions clashed head-to-head to push forward and oppose the motion.
The ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, which heard a motion that the party’s general secretary, Ace Magashule, should retire from office within seven days or face suspension, is likely to continue on Monday, 29 April. March, exceeding his scheduled three days.
News 24 reported that the meeting turned into chaos as opposing factions went head-to-head to push the motion and oppose it. An announced closing address scheduled for 6 p.m. had yet to start Sunday night and was officially postponed after 10 p.m. City press reported that different factions argued throughout the weekend.
Former President Thabo Mbeki spearheaded the move to get Magashule to step aside or face disciplinary action, and was followed by other heavy hitters who also argued that the secretary general’s office was obstructing the ANC’s renewal.
The party debated the 2020 report from the party’s Integrity Commission, which conducted numerous reports last year, the most urgent of which was its December 2020 report that found that the NEC should order it to step aside because he has been charged with 74 counts of corruption. and fraud along with his co-defendant in the asbestos roof audit contract worth R233 million in Free State.
A motion was reportedly passed giving him seven days to stand aside or face suspension and disciplinary action. This is the fourth NEC meeting where the Integrity Commission report has been on the agenda.
In a prolonged political tit-for-tat, Magashule’s team argued against the motion, saying that others named in corruption scandals, and who are politically closer to President Cyril Ramphosa, would also have to step aside.
A team led by former President Kgalema Motlanthe has written a detailed 14-page process to step aside that has been approved by the NEC. But reports suggest Magashule is staying true to his public opinion that only ANC branches meeting in a special national conference can get him to step aside because he was elected at a national conference of branch delegates at the elective conference of the party of 2017.
A different view is that the NEC has the power to act between conferences and that the party is a voluntary organization that can discipline, suspend or order its officials to step aside even while a judicial process is still ongoing. DM
