ALSO READ: Free State ANC IPC fails to hold conference yet again

The party’s highest national structure, the  National Executive Committee (NEC), is set to give directives to the provincial party structure about whether the Branch General Meetings (BGM’s) held across the province are qualified or not. 

According to the IPC’s spokesperson, Oupa Khoabane, the party needs a 70% and above threshold, which will then enable it to hold this conference ahead of the ANC’s National Conference in Nasrec in December 2022. In October 2022, Khoabane said many Branch Conferences did not qualify after verification by Head Office. If the NEC’s decision is to disqualify the held branch meetings, the party will again be forced to re-run the meetings.

The party has been riddled with factions and has been unable to carry out the mandate of the province at the provincial conference.

The party was set to hold a conference in May/July but it failed. It then postponed it to September and again it failed to have a conference. Later it was pushed further into October and again, for the third time, it announced that it failed to prepare and organise the conference. 

It’s understood that in case the IPC’s term of office has lapsed, it will not be allowed to take part or vote in the upcoming National Conference but would be offered an observer status. However, if the party’s higher structure National Executive Committee (NEC) was to appoint a structure, perhaps called an Interim Task Team (ITT) before the conference, the ITT structure would then be given a right to vote and participate fully in terms of the ANC constitution, as included in Rule 10 and 12.

The Free State ANC remains the only province with an interim structure and the only province yet to hold its conference to elect the new Provincial Executive Committee (PEC).

In April 2021, the Bloemfontein-based Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in the Free State set aside and declared the ANC's provincial conference, which was held in May 2018, as unconstitutional and unlawful.

ALSO READ: FS #ANC conference unlawful

This is where ousted MEC for Roads and Transport, Sam Mashinini, was elected as the chairperson of the party; and the current MEC for Transport, William Bulwane, as his deputy.

A disgruntled group of ANC members took the matter to the SCA after a High Court Judge dismissed its bid to have the elected structure declared illegal and unconstitutional in 2018.

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