The provincial ANC conference held at the University of Venda over the weekend has come and gone. Here is the full report from the conference.

If the outcome of the 6th Limpopo ANC conference, held at the University of Venda over the weekend, was anything to go by, Limpopo Premier Sello Moloto’s future is in the balance. As was expected, the conference did not produce any surprises with all the top five positions being snatched by people aligned to the Zuma camp.

The position of chairman was being contested by the former provincial secretary, Cassel Mathale, and Moloto, and Mathale cruised to victory. The only surprise of the conference was that it went smoothly, unlike the other conferences which were marred by violent clashes between supporters of the two prominent camps in the South African political arena, the Mbeki and the Zuma camp. It was feared that the violent stand-offs and disruptions of meetings in the buildup to the conference might signal a disrupted conference, but supporters of the two top candidates behaved beyond expectations. Talk became rife immediately after the results were made known that Moloto would have to toe the line or be shown the door before the end of his term. Some were even saying that he should relinquish his position immediately, as he was not fit to be there. It is now clear that those who have been baying for his head might go to the extent of making life difficult for Moloto, that he would not be able to absorb the heat and that he would be forced to resign.

As it has come to be, the weekend conference was perceived to be athe continuation of the Polokwane conference where Mbeki was clearly shown that he had lost his political grip when he lost his chair to Zuma. Ever since, the trend has been continuing where the Zuma camp has been sweeping the slates in all the elections and this has come to show a clear division of power, with two centers which are adversely affecting service delivery.

The top five positions are as follows: Chairmanship: Cassel Mathale garnered 587 votes with Moloto getting 357; Dickson Masemola beat his rival, Motalane Monakedi, by 238 votes for the Deputy-Chair position; former MEC Joe Maswanganyi was elected General Secretary; Pinky Kekana is the new Deputy General Secretary and Ms Dipuo Letsatsi is the new treasurer.

After his election as the new chairman, Mathale downplayed the fact that there was any rivalry between him and Moloto. “He is my comrade in service delivery and I am still going to work with him. The organization allows for members to have their preferred choices of leadership and that is not rivalry,” he said.

Mathale said there was no division in the provincial ANC as members were free to debate on policy issues and were also free to decide on the people to can lead them in the right direction and this should not be perceived as division. He said the victory over the weekend was not his, but the victory of the ANC. “We are prepared for the challenge; we have a duty to perform and ours is not a fight for top government jobs but to serve our people,” he said. He said he was happily looking forward to serving the ANC, with rebuilding branches and revitalizing membership of the organization being top of his agenda. He said they will be going all out to councilors to remind them of the undertaking they made when they took office. “They have to brief their communities on whatever they do,” he said.

Contrary to what many were thinking, Moloto gathered all his courage and ascended the podium to welcome the new leadership. He was seen hugging Mathale and uttering something to him. It is widely believed that he will leave politics after the end of his term.