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Supra Mahumapelo's provincial executive committee (PEC) says it had already started meeting with structures and reworking the province's candidate lists when the High Court in Pretoria ordered the ANC to take "immediate" steps to ensure the committee headed by the former premier is put back in office.
On Wednesday Judge Fayeeza Kathree-Setiloane ruled in the PEC's favour, granting its application to enforce a judgment she made in Johannesburg last week to reinstate the PEC and to nullify the provincial task team that was established as an interim structure.
She granted the order on what was meant to be the PEC's last day in office.
She agreed with the explanation of the applicants' legal team that based on a memorandum sent out by ANC secretary general Ace Magashule last year – saying that there should be no conference until after the general elections in May – it would benefit and not harm the party to reinstate the PEC.
READ: Court rules Supra Mahumapelo must occupy office immediately
This means Mahumapelo and his executive can take over key processes, which were previously administered by the now disbanded task team, first established in September.
The list is made up of candidates that the province wants to see serving in provincial legislatures and the National Assembly on behalf of the party.
It was also one of the issues of contention brought up during numerous court appearances by Mahumapelo and four others challenging the dissolution of their provincial committee by the ANC's national executive committee (NEC).
A jubilant Aaron Motshwana, who is the first applicant in the matter, told News24 the PEC would be meeting on Wednesday evening to finalise processes around the list and that it would submit it to Magashule at ANC headquarters on Thursday.
Task team's list to be considered
He said the PEC had already started working on changing the list in accordance to its own wishes.
"We've been hard at work since the Friday after the 6th, convening PEC meetings, the one today is the third one. We are looking into issues of the list, engaging alliance members, Sanco (South African National Civic Organisation) has already submitted its list and the ANC Youth League is meeting to finalise its own list," said Motshwana.
He said even the now defunct task team had been asked to compile its own candidate list, which will be taken into consideration by the PEC.
"The PTT (provincial task team) was supposed to have sat for their own meeting today, to finalise and to also consider their actions going forward along with an invitation from the PEC," he said.
Motshwana explained that the PEC had extended an olive branch to the task team, saying it had no issues with the structure and was keen to co-opt around 10 to 15 of its members into the PEC.
"It's also a directive from Sunday's meeting that we must work together. It's not that the court's saying they are unlawfully appointed means they are not ANC members, hence we will work with them as long as what is clear is that the PEC is respected," he said.
The PEC is expected to report its progress to the ANC on Thursday, after which Magashule is expected to include some of that information in a report to the special NEC set to take place on Sunday.
