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Johannesburg — Disgruntled ANC stalwarts and veterans were yesterday set to shed light on plans to boycott the ruling party’s consultative conference, after their pleas for a special stand-alone conference have fallen on deaf ears.

They gathered at Constitutional Hill, a former prison complex that bears testament to the country’s dark past and which houses the Constitutional Court.

It was the Constitution and the founding values of the ANC that the group had recently referred to when they called on President Jacob Zuma and “all those who were party to state capture” to step down.

Their letters to Zuma and the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) last month pleaded for leadership to be shown over serious state capture concerns.

The elders also reminded Zuma of the undertaking he had previously made for a separate National Consultative Conference, one extending beyond branch delegates to civil society, to tackle the direction the party was taking.

But Secretary General Gwede Mantashe confirmed almost two weeks ago that the ANC would go ahead with the extended national policy conference, which included a consultative conference, on Friday, with or without the elders.

He told City Press that the time to plead with them to reconsider their decision to boycott the event, was up.

Two days of the ANC’s policy conference have been set aside to discuss organisational renewal.

The ANC’s discussion document on organisational renewal proposed that changing environmental conditions necessitated a comprehensive review of the party’s organisational and structural design.

It posed a number of questions, including,“Can we safely say there is disintegration and weakening of the Alliance and its component parts? Is there lack of coherence within the historical alliance partners?” — AP