30 April 2009
The gloves are off in the provincial ANC, with the western Cape leadership turning on their own man.
At the receiving end is Chris Nissen, who ran the ANC's failed provincial election campaign after his appointment in January by national leaders. At issue were his comments to the media about the party's poor performance during the elections.
He said one of the mistakes the provincial ANC had made in past years, and which had come back to haunt the party last week, was neglecting its coloured branches.
Last night provincial secretary Sipho Kroma slammed Nissen, with the elections team manager, Health MEC Marius Fransman, accusing them of "parading themselves as Messiahs of the ANC".
This was "not on", Kroma said. "Where were they when the ANC was neglecting the coloured branches?" he asked. The party's support took a dive from the 45.25 percent it won in the Western Cape in 2004, to a mere 31.55 percent last week.
Nissen highlighted Parkwood as an example, saying he had found that the party had "only two people" in the primarily coloured area. He indicated yesterday that he was in the process of reporting back to party leaders regarding a "proper" assessment of the ANC in the province.
His report would suggest how the party should engage with the coloured community generally, and not only during elections. The ANC also needed to address "the best use of resources", especially between coloured people and Africans in the province, Nissen said.
"It's about resources that's where the fight is. We should not let race polarise the politics of the province," he said. His team had done well in building a platform for the 2011 local government elections and he was not disappointed with the result of last week's elections.
"I'm quite happy although we would have loved to get 42 to 46 percent," Nissen said. The result had been a huge improvement on the projected 18 percent they had expected to take when his team took over in January.
"I was presented with the figures by our analysts, that the ANC's support was at 18 percent. This was on January 3," he said.
Any other figure being suggested was "a lie". The Cape Argus understands that some ANC leaders reject the 18 percent claim, saying party support was at 26 percent when Nissen took over.
Last night Kroma said he would not entertain Nissen's comments since the ANC had still to sit down and analyse or evaluate the elections results. Provincial chairman Mcebisi Skwatsha said he too would respond only when the provincial executive had assessed the elections campaign.
He accused Nissen of "mischief-making". When he took over in January, Nissen said he would return to his business interests after the elections, but on Wednesday he would say only that it was up to the ANC to decide his next move.
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