The News Online
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Angry delegates have been sent | home without choosing a new| leadership after the South African National Civic Organisation descended into violence and chaos.
Chairs were flung across the conference hall in frustration when delegates called for Sanco's national working committee (NWC) to be dissolved.
"We want to declare a vote of no confidence in the NWC, which has failed to lead us," delegates from the Northern Cape, KwaZulu Natal, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, North West and half of the Free State demanded - forcing an impromptu referendum.
The Eastern Cape, Western Cape and the other half of the Free State demanded that the conference continue, with delegates voting to choose the new leadership.
But upset Sanco members who were meant to have left the University of the Free State - where the conference was held - at noon felt they were being railroaded.
Delegates argued that the registration process, upon which a legitimate election hangs, was completed only at 6pm on the last day of the conference, with certain discrepancies apparent.
Matters turned ugly when the election authority chosen to oversee the event said it could not do so as there was no paper or fax machines to print ballot papers.
"Please don't throw the chairs. You will get injured and we don't have the money to pay," committee members said as they rushed into a meeting to try to find a way to end the deadlock.
Seconds later Sanco president Mlungisi Hlongwane ordered the conference to disband "before anybody gets hurt".
He said the NWC of the six provinces that backed the motion of no confidence would be disbanded.
This breakdown occurred only hours after President Thabo Mbeki had urged the organisation's leaders to lead Sanco back to prominence.
"This is very embarrassing for us," said secretary-general Linda Mngomezulu. He and Sanco deputy president Ruth Bhengu, who sat silently as the chaos unfolded, lamented that this "sort of thing has never happened before".
"I feel like jumping out of my skin," Mngomezulu said. He explained that tensions had been brewing with delegates feeling that the national conference was a farce.
Many, however, blame him and Hlongwane for the problems. They claim that duplicate delegations arrived at the conference only because they were invited by either the president or the secretary-general.
Hlongwane has come under fire from all sides, including from his old ally, Mbeki, who questioned what good a leader was if he divided the organisation he headed.
"If I ran for the president of Sanco, and in the course of that, divided Sanco and created factions within Sanco, and in the course of that created a situation that it was impossible to get any work done, then that presidency would be worth nothing."
Mbeki repeated his views about careerism in the ANC and what he described as the "sickness of people wanting to be leaders".
"Why do they not wait for the people to tell them to come and lead us?" he said to applause from delegates.
Asking to be voted for was a concept alien to the ANC and the tripartite alliance, he added.
Mbeki made it clear that while the future looked bright for Sanco, it was perhaps time for a new leader to unite the once powerful organisation.
Describing Sanco as a critical alliance partner of the ANC, he said the organisation had a huge role to play in putting the government's unspent millions to good use.