Gangster State

got routed at Nasrec, Magashule and his PEC pressed ahead with plans
to convene a provincial conference, despite the High Court’s firm
warning not to do so until all branches affected by the judgment had
held lawful BGMs.
The latest provincial conference was held in Magashule’s hometown
on Monday 11 December, less than a week before the Nasrec
conference was scheduled to start. Thabo Manyoni, the former mayor
of Mangaung, was supposed to challenge Magashule for the position of
provincial chairperson,^20 but he and his backers boycotted the
conference, adamant that the problems at the disputed branches had
not been resolved.^21 With his only challenger absent, Magashule
secured a landslide victory.^22 But it would prove to be short-lived. On
the Friday before the national conference was due to begin, the
Bloemfontein High Court yet again ruled in favour of disgruntled party
members who sought to have the Parys conference declared unlawful
and its decisions void. The court found that fourteen of the twenty-nine
disputed branches could not send delegates to Nasrec.^23 This translated
into a loss of about eighty voting delegates for the province. Although
the voting at Nasrec for some of the Top Six positions ended up being
extremely close, the Free State’s ‘lost’ votes alone would not have
changed the outcome in any of those contests.^24
Magashule’s victory at Nasrec over his challenger Senzo Mchunu
certainly deserves scrutiny. The result surprised not only onlookers and
commentators, but conference delegates too. Mchunu had received
more branch nominations than Magashule and was widely expected to
win.^25 Many delegates therefore struggled to contain their shock when
the outcome was announced.^26 The battle for secretary-general yielded
the tightest result of all the major races. Exactly 4 696 votes were