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Five of the seven Eastern Cape ANC Youth League regions that were disbanded three months ago amid claims they were dysfunctional and that their term of office had lapsed, will get a chance to elect new regional leaders this weekend.
The dissolved youth structures, which were later replaced by interim regional task teams, were given until the end of February to go to congress and elect new leadership structures.
The Dr WB Rubusana region in Buffalo City Metro and the Joe Gqabi, OR Tambo, Sarah Baartman and the Nelson Mandela Bay metro regions will host their elective conferences on Friday and Saturday.
The troubled and divided Chris Hani region will stage its elective congress in February, while the Alfred Nzo region held its conference, which was uncontested, last weekend.
This was confirmed by the league’s provincial secretary, Francisco Dyantyi, on Monday.
He said all these regions were dissolved by the league’s national leadership in August, after they failed to hold elective conferences when their terms of office had expired.
Dyantyi said the May general election, was the main reason many of the regions had delayed going to their elective congresses after their terms of office lapsed.
He said only the Amathole region would not be going to conference soon because it had elected its regional executive committee structure in 2022.
Though the five regions had indicated their readiness to go to congress this weekend, Dyantyi said, the Chris Hani region had indicated that it would be ready to do so only in February.
A tight contest could be on the cards when warring ANC Youth League factions in the Buffalo City Metro’s Dr WB Rubusana region sit for their conference.
The league’s regional structure was dissolved in August and replaced with an interim structure that was led by Loyiso Mkubelo as convener and Khonaye Tilongo as regional co-ordinator.
Mkubelo, who has been a regional chair of the youth league since before it was dissolved — amid glaring divisions — is set to contest for the position.
However, he is expected to face stiff competition from a faction led by the region’s former youth league leader and current RTT member, Ondela “Obama” Sokomani, who on Monday confirmed that he would challenge for the position of regional chair.
Mkubelo could not be reached on Monday
Asked about the pressing issues facing young people in the region which he would address should he be elected, Sokomani said youth unemployment topped his to-do list.
“We have a serious issue of youth unemployment in the region and quite a substantial cohort of young people who had gone through the formal education system, many of them graduates.
“So, we need to resuscitate our efforts to re-industrialise the metro by ensuring that youth are given start-ups to be involved in the manufacturing and production sectors of the economy.
“We need to ensure that our young people are given adequate support for them to start up their own businesses.
“We also need to embark on a serious campaign for land expropriation, so that our youth can be able to acquire land and open up businesses in pockets of land that belong to the municipality,” Sokomani said.
He added that if elected, he would also campaign “to ensure that the municipality’s staff complement is relatively younger so we could pump energy into the municipality”.
Tilongo, who has been instrumental in the preparations for this weekend’s elective conference as a regional task team co-ordinator, confirmed on Monday that he would be contesting for the position of regional secretary, a post he held before the regional structure was disbanded.
Tilongo said the BCM congress would be held at an East London beachfront hotel and that 90 voting branch delegates were expected to participate in the election of the new regional leadership structure.
A private security company would be contracted to safeguard the conference delegates and to prevent any commotion between the warring youth league factions in the region.
In Mkubelo and Tilongo’s slate, Davion Samson is expected to contest for the deputy chair position, Lumka Swanana for the deputy secretary seat and Siya Nongqayi as the regional treasurer.
This is the same leadership structure that has led the regional task team since August.
In 2022, parallel structures emerged in Dr WB Rubusana after a group led by Sokomani as chair was elected at a conference in Chintsa, while another grouping, which held a separate conference in Gonubie, elected Pedro Mzileni as its chair.
Both structures were later disbanded.
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