In late 2011 there were murmurs of a possible attempt by fed-up ANC
members in the Free State to dismantle the hegemony of chairman Ace
Magashule and his cohort.^16 What apparently started as a band of
disaffected party members in the Motheo region grew into a fully
fledged faction which became known as the Regime Change group.
The challengers not only aimed to unseat the Magashule bloc in the
Free State, but they also planned to oppose Jacob Zuma’s reign as
party president at the next national conference in Mangaung by
backing then president Kgalema Motlanthe instead.
Far from being mere upstarts and opportunists, the Regime Changers
included former provincial chairperson Pat Matosa, MEC and
provincial treasurer Mxolisi Dukwana, provincial secretary Sibongile
Besani, then national sport minister Fikile Mbalula, and former MK
member and Free State MEC Gregory Nthatisi.
In April 2012 , about two months before the provincial conference was
scheduled to take place in Parys, an unnamed ANC leader sympathetic
to the Regime Change cause told the Mail & Guardian why the
chairperson had to go. ‘There is rampant corruption in many
government departments and in the form of the Hlasela Fund, which is
not a policy of the ANC but a vehicle to enrich Magashule and his
cronies,’ the newspaper quoted the senior ANC member as saying.
‘There is patronage and we have seen a skewed distribution of
government work in favour of those close to the chosen one.’^17
Magashule framed such criticism as mere political campaigning by the
Regime Change group. ‘There is no patronage,’ he told the Sunday
Independent. ‘It is people who are too ambitious who say this ... I
don’t have time for ambitious people.’^18
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