Cope president Mosiuoa Lekota on Friday again denied there was a leadership tussle between himself and his first deputy Mbhazima Shilowa.
”Where is the evidence that these people are fighting? People can’t just keep saying these people are fighting when you don’t see a nose that is bleeding,” he told a press briefing at the party’s headquarters in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, flanked by spokesperson Phillip Dexter.
Lekota’s denial followed the resignation of two senior party leaders, second deputy president Lynda Odendaal and head of elections Simon Grindrod this week. Both had cited the leadership struggle between the two as a reason the party was floundering.
A ”perception” had been created about a leadership battle between the two former ANC heavyweights.
”In politics perception often influences things more than hard facts,” he said.
”The calming down after the election was always going to happen … any organisation of the size of Cope may have had ups and downs of its own. We can say with certainty the party has been established across the length and breadth of the country … it is quite clear that the Cope will be a feature of the South African landscape for a long time to come,” Lekota said.
The briefing tailed a meeting of the party leadership which began on Friday and would end on Saturday. The first leg of the meeting heard a political report from Lekota.
Dexter, reading from a statement, said the party was not ”falling apart”.
”Cope rejects any suggestions that it is in crisis or is falling apart or that it has committed fraud. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
While there were challenges the party faced, these were on its agenda and would be tackled.
Grindrod and Odendaal’s resignations were followed by criticism of the party, detailed in the former’s resignation letter and in an interview with Beeld newspaper by the latter.
According to the newspaper Odendaal told Shilowa that he was the problem in the organisation, and accused him of manipulation.
Grindrod described the party as racked by ”divisions and undemocratic principles”.
The party has accepted that its elective conference, which it intended to hold in the next two to two-and-a-half years, would be delayed.
The party needed to establish democratically-elected structures from the ”bottom up”, at branch level to regions and provinces, before the conference could take place.
It also needed to hold a policy conference and ”refine” its constitution, Lekota said.
”My own sense … is that it’s a challenge, it’s a more difficult task than it looked like at the beginning.”
The party’s leadership meeting would conclude on Saturday, after which it would release a statement.
”The meeting will tomorrow [Saturday] continue to discuss how we implement the plan of action in building structures, taking up campaigns, strengthen the communication of our message and continually assess the state of our organisation,” Dexter said. – Sapa