Mabuza to lead 'rapid response team' to resolve tensions in North West ANC

The ANC will send a newly established structure to the troubled North West to meet its warring factions.

This is after the South Gauteng High Court effectively reinstated Supra Mahumapelo as the party's provincial chairman on Wednesday.

Party spokesman Zizi Kodwa said the ANC established a "rapid response team" on Monday this week, led by the deputy president, David Mabuza.

Kodwa said Mabuza and his team would be deployed to the North West this weekend to meet the provincial task team and Mahumapelo’s provincial executive committee in a bid to foster unity.

"We need immediate answers. That structure must have powers to decide," he said.

Kodwa said the team would discuss ways to foster unity in the party and ensure it retains the North West in this year’s elections.

"If we are to achieve unity, it can't be through court judgments - but we must respect that we are a subject of the constitution.  We must use court judgments as part of fostering unity," he said, adding that nobody in the North West should feel like a winner or a loser.

Kodwa said the ANC would appeal Wednesday's ruling by Judge Fayeeza Kathree-Setiloane, who declared the 2018 decision by the party's NEC to disband the North West leadership unlawful.

He said the appeal was required to protect the power of the ANC and ensure that the NEC remained its highest decision-making body.

"ANC as an NGO is governed by its own constitution ... ANC members commit themselves to an oath of membership and its constitution confirms the authority of organisational structures such as the NEC," said Kodwa.

"It also says somewhere that the NEC is the highest decision making body between conferences. That's why we say we want to appeal the judgment in its full context."