ANC Women's League played a role in Polokwane factional fights, Baleka Mbete tells congress

• The ANC Women's League is hosting an elective conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg this weekend. 
• The league has been led by a task team since 2022, when the term of its executive expired.
• ANC Women's League convener Baleka Mbete told delegates that the league played a critical role in the factional battles of the 2007 ANC Polokwane conference and in the years following that divisive meeting.

In a critical political report delivered at the ANC Women (ANCWL)'s League conference late on Friday, Baleka Mbete told delegates that the league was left wounded and divided by factional battles that emerged at the ANC's 2007 Polokwane conference.

Mbete, the convener of the ANCWL national task team, said the Polokwane conference factionalised all aspects of the ANC, including the ANCWL. 

She said history would show how women in the league played a role in dividing the ANC.

"The post-Polokwane intensely factional environment had a very negative effect on all movement structures at all levels. The women were also affected as they were part of the movement and all its formations. It is a fact that when history is captured, it will show how exactly and how much we reflected this contamination as women," Mbete said in the report. 

The Polokwane conference saw former president Jacob Zuma contesting for ANC presidency against his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki.

The conference saw the emergence of members being sidelined or rewarded depending on which grouping they belonged to.

READ: The ANC five years after Polokwane

The party has remained broadly divided along those factionalised lines since, Mbete said.

The ANC's 2017 conference, which saw the election of Cyril Ramaphosa as president, saw similar battle lines being drawn as ANCWL members took sides in favour of or against Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the minister in the Presidency responsible for women, youth and persons with disabilities.

Mbete said the factionalism had led to a weakened ANC and steep electoral declines in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. 

She said the ANCWL conference had to discuss how the ANC could claw back its electoral performance. 

"This conference has to find space to discuss issues raised in this document. The same document raises the issue of how we have a revolutionary duty to defeat the demon of factionalism, which has weakened the movement.

"This will not only strengthen the ANC ... A strong ANC is needed in 2024. The need for the women's league to be its best and its strongest cannot be overemphasised. The beginning of this is mending and retracing our steps as the alliance women, not superficially, but honestly. The truth shall set us free and strengthen us fundamentally."

Mbete was appointed as one of several members of the ANCWL task team in 2022 after the league was disbanded due to the expiry of its executive's term. The team was tasked with rebuilding the league's structures and leading it to a conference, a task that was not easy, she said.

READ: ANC Women's League hails Ntshavheni, Ramokgopa Cabinet appointments as 'progressive'

Despite an uncoherent structure ahead of the party's elective conference last December, Mbete said the league did score some wins but more was needed.

She counted creating a second deputy secretary-general position in the ANC leadership at the elective conference as a win. This position is occupied by Maropene Ramokgopa, who is also the minister in the Presidency responsible for planning, monitoring and evaluation.

Mbete said the aim was to ensure that women's representation is reflected more broadly, with procurement targets for black women and an increase in the number of black women represented in and appointed to lead chancellorships in universities. 

The ANCWL conference was delayed on Friday as some delegates from the North West still needed to register. 

It will elect new leadership for the league, and former ANCWL president Bathabile Dlamini will stand for a second term. 

The nominations and voting will likely take place later on Saturday.

The conference is expected to conclude on Sunday with a closing address by President Cyril Ramaphosa.