‘ANC must get rid of infighting, arrogance’

Mlibo Qoboshiyane , the ANC head of elections in the Eastern Cape, said the party needs to put infighting and ‘arrogance’ aside in order to regain control of Nelson Mandela Bay.

Port Elizabeth - The best way for the ANC to regain control of the Nelson Mandela Bay will be its structures to put infighting and “arrogance” aside.

This is according to ANC’s head of elections in the Eastern Cape Mlibo Qoboshiyane who said the party was very “disappointed” of losing the Eastern Cape’s economic capital to DA.

“Our challenge now is to mobilise and unite all our structures in the Nelson Mandela Bay region. We are not going to be arrogant about it. It must be a well considered political consciousness. We need a well-oiled machinery to attend to the DA’s dominance in the region,” said Qoboshiyane.

In the Nelson Mandela Bay, the DA won 46.71% of the votes, the ANC received 40.92% while the EFF won 5.12% of the votes.

Having accepted the defeat of losing the Nelson Mandela Bay, the ANC will meet for a special provincial executive committee meeting on Sunday to discuss its plans for the party’s regional conference in the Nelson Mandela Bay.

The leadership of the ANC in the Nelson Mandela Bay region was disbanded by the ANC’s top brass in January 2015 following years of infighting. The metro is currently led by a regional task team.

Though Qoboshiyane could not confirm time frames for the Nelson Mandela Bay regional conference he said the matter will be treated with urgency.

He said it is not the first time for an opposition to win a “strategic” municipality in the Eastern Cape. “In 2000, the UDM won the King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality in Mthatha. We humbled ourselves during that defeat and worked hard to regain that municipality five years later,” said Qoboshiyane.

On Danny Jordaan’s future, Qoboshiyane said the party has got “faith and confidence” in him.

“Danny Jordaan is number one on our PR list in Nelson Mandela Bay. His short stint as mayor of this metro will never be blemished by anyone including the DA. Jordaan will stay in that municipality as our councillor. He fixed a lot of inefficiencies in this metro within a short space of time,” said Qoboshiyane.

The ANC painted East London streets yellow and green on Friday “celebrating” its majority win on the overall results for the entire Eastern Cape.

Meanwhile IEC’s provincial electoral officer Thami Mraji said inclement weather was the major challenge during the Wednesday’s municipal elections in the province. This after 24 tents used as voting stations delayed the voting process in some areas after they were blown away several times by strong gale force wind. Eleven of these affected tents were in King Sabata Dalindyebo while nine were in Nelson Mandela Bay.

ANC's provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane said the IEC must refrain from using tents as voting stations “where there is infrastructure but where there is none, there are better quality marquees that can be used by the IEC.”

“We don’t think it’s fair to have people queuing outside in cold conditions waiting to cast their vote when they can be accommodated in warm structures like churches and other public facilities,” said Mabuyane.

Election Bureau