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Future Of South Africa's New Party COPE In Serious Doubt
9 July 2009
COPE members in various provinces were "waiting with bated breath" for the outcome of a meeting of the party's top brass to tackle the party's leadership woes. "I think the members of COPE in the province are waiting with bated breath for the congress national committee meeting this week," said Thabiso Teffo, spokesperson for the Limpopo province, of the two-day meeting taking place in Johannesburg from Friday. This followed the resignation of the party's second deputy president, former businesswoman Lynda Odendaal, for reasons which were not yet clear. Mbulelo Ncedana, chairperson of the Congress of the People in the Western Cape, was also in the dark, but said on Thursday he had received letters from branches indicating that people wanted the leadership to address the issues, but they retained their faith in the organisation. "Obviously, we don't enjoy people resigning, but this organisation is bigger than people in it," Ncedana said. "We are waiting for the meeting to take place tomorrow [Friday], then we will get a full report." Deputy chairperson for COPE youth in Tshwane, Zelda Ngxiki, described the situation "on the ground" as "hard". "It's really hard, we also as the people on the ground are asking the leadership for answers. But what we are doing is getting together and working. It's hard but not as bad as people expect," she said. Ngxiki said the reason for Odendaal's departure was unknown, even to those in the party. "We don't know the reasons. She never participated that much, but we came up with our own conclusion that it became too hard for her." Odendaal could not be reached for comment, nor could party spokesperson Phillip Dexter. COPE leader Mosioua Lekota, addressing a media conference in Cape Town on Thursday, was unsure of the reasons for Odendaal's departure. COPE Youth Movement leader Anele Mda said after Odendaal resigned, people had been "rather despondent and hopeless", as they concluded that party leadership was unable to deal with what was happening. "On that basis as COPE Youth Movement we call on all members who have been entrusted to lead this organisation to closely do analysis with an intention of cleansing the house," she said in a statement. Recent reports had painted a dismal picture of the state of the fledgling party, citing the party's financial and leadership woes. Simon Grindrod - a former senior executive committee member and head of elections for the party - earlier described the party as racked by "divisions and undemocratic principles". Grindrod resigned as a member of COPE's national working committee and as the party's head of elections, but remained an ordinary member. "It is becoming my view that a great fraud has been perpetrated against the South African electorate and I will no longer be part of leading it," he said in a letter to the party's general secretary earlier this week. "After eight months of genuine effort to further the work of the party as a member of the national executive, I am now convinced that very little appetite exists to accept, let alone rectify, the very serious challenges which face the party." Mda again called for Grindrod's dismissal from the party, despite Lekota saying she had "jumped the gun" in calling for his expulsion from the party at the press conference earlier. He said it was baffling, following a series of leaks of internal documents, that people assumed those raising issues would be sanctioned. "There is not an underground organisation. Some people think COPE should operate as a banned organisation." - Sapa
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