ANC schisms widen over congress call

The fight for the soul of the ANC raged yesterday as divisions deepened over whether to hold an early conference to heal the organisation's wounds.

Yesterday leaders in Gauteng called for a broad ANC-led special national consultative conference.

But the ANC Women's League was opposed to the idea of an early conference.

Gauteng ANC leaders think a consultative conference would help assess the state of the party and its alliances.

ANC Gauteng secretary Hope Mankwana Papo said such a conference would enable the party to agree on the necessary interventions needed to unite, rebuild and renew the ANC.

Since the local government elections, which saw the ANC lose power in the three major metros of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay, the former liberation organisation has been at pains to explain its decline.

Voices have emerged calling for a change in the party's leadership, with the ANC Youth League demanding an early conference to choose a new leadership.

The Gauteng leadership of the party spoke after an extended provincial executive committee meeting in Johannesburg on Friday and Saturday to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the outcome of the recent elections.

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But the women's league said yesterday it did not believe there was a crisis and rejected the call for an early conference to recall President Jacob Zuma.

Women's league president Bathabile Dlamini said there was no crisis in the ANC as it performed well in six provinces. She saidthe party had to fix problems in the areas where it registered a loss of votes.

ANC Mpumalanga chairman David Mabuza also rejected the call for an early conference.

He said the loss of votes in the elections could not be blamed on Zuma.

"The problem is Gauteng belongs to Paul [Mashatile]. Paul must account for votes lost in Johannesburg and Pretoria.

"Zuma was elected by a conference of the ANC and conferences will come and go - and this is not the last conference of the ANC. We will not be persuaded to hold an early conference."

Mabuza was speaking to media after the party's provincial lekgotla.

Gauteng has been at loggerheads with its national leaders and was first to call for Zuma "to reflect and do the right thing" after the Constitutional Court found against him regarding spending to his private home in Nkandla.