The African Transformation Movement (ATM) in the province has accused former member Buyisile Ngqulwana of being an ANC pawn used to sow divisions in the party.
This comes after Ngqulwana broke ranks and requested the Electoral Commission (IEC) to remove the ATM from the ballot paper.
ATM provincial chair Veliswa Mvenya said the party was not shocked by Ngqulwana’s actions, but was relieved that he “exposed himself for what he is”.
“As the ATM we are neither shocked nor surprised by his actions. We have been waiting patiently to see what the ANC will do as a dirty trick to weaken the ATM. The ANC is well known for being threatened by new political parties that are making inroads in its constituencies. It is well known that it infiltrates and destroys them,” Mvenya said.
She said ATM members were waiting to see what angle or who the ANC was going to use to try and infiltrate the party.
“We knew that this is going to happen sooner or later, but we did not know the strategy. But with all that said, we were ready because we know that the ANC has such tendencies and they do not want anything that threatens their position in power,” she said.
ANC provincial secretary Lulama Ngcukayitobi denied the accusations, saying the ATM should rather deal with its internal squabbles.
“That’s absolute nonsense. The ATM should shoulder blame for its internal mess. It must rescue itself from its internal quagmire and disabuse itself of focusing on the ANC. The truth is that the ATM is really a project gone wrong.”
IEC spokesperson Kate Bapela confirmed that the commission had received the complaint but refused to comment further “as the matter referred to is currently under investigation”.
Last week, Ngqulwana, believed to be one of the founding members of the ATM, released a media statement requesting that the party be deregistered. He claimed that in a recently-held conference, the South African Council of Messianic Churches in Christ (SACMCC) and the African Transformation Congress (ATC) resolved that ATM had been fraudulently registered.
“The ATC constitution was used fraudulently to register the ATM and the IEC did not scrutinise the paperwork in the process of registration. The conference therefore resolved that the SACMCC/ATC distances itself from the ATM.”
But Mvenya claimed that Ngqulwana was part of the team that had registered ATM, knowing fully well that the party would adopt the ATC’s constitution.
Attempts to get comment from Ngqulwana were unsuccessful at the time of writing...