On Saturday, ANC members and delegates gathered in East London to vote on the new Provincial Executive Committee (PEC), but things didn’t go down too well.

In the “wee hours” of Sunday morning, police were sent to intervene when those in attendance at the East London ICC turned on each other, reports Times LIVE.

With fists and chairs flying left and right across the venue, blows were exchanged between those supporting Phumulo Masualle and those supporting Oscar Mabuyane.

Eventually, 755 delegates believed to be pro-Masualle were forced to “flee for their lives”, and left behind an estimated 951 who were predominantly rooting for Mabuyane.

As a result of the violence, “scores of delegates were injured” – and you can believe that after taking a look at the utter chaos that went down:

How are those flying chairs? Makes events in Uganda seem pretty tame (HERE).

The violence came “during the adoption of credentials at around midnight, when delegates demanded to know what happened to some of the branches and their members,” reports News24.

ANC provincial executive committee member Mlibo Qoboshiyane told reporters that:

“Because… we [have] too [many] altercations when it comes to that, there was a proposal that there must be division of the house, which did not sit well with the branches,” he said.

“They started to sing up until there was division of the house. Then we saw chairs flying and people get injured. Some had to rush [out] for their safety, they were trampled upon and indeed there were injuries that happened.”

The aftermath:

#ANCECConference atleast 8 people were taken to hospital after violent attacks inside the venue @News24 pic.twitter.com/H7r33yZ2aw

— Tolokazi (@lizTandwa) September 30, 2017

Meanwhile, ANC national spokesman Zizi Kodwa condemned the violence:

“It’s unheard of in the ANC that such an incident would happen in the ANC conference. We have tried to abolish what’s called slates and factionalism, that is to an extent to which factionalism was so entrenched,” Kodwa said.

“We are a democratic organisation what we are beginning to see is people who are prepared to contest but they are not prepared to lose.”

First issues with the KZN PEC and now with the Eastern Cape? Seems like the ANC is imploding.

News24 has a full breakdown of events.

[source:timeslive&news24]