MKMVA backs ANC President Jacob Zuma for second term.(REUTERS)
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Police in Bloemfontein are on high alert after receiving intelligence reports that disruptions are being planned for the ANC's national conference taking place in Mangaung in December.
Free State police commissioner Kehla Sithole says security will be beefed up during the event and roadblocks will be set up at six main routes.
Sithole says a huge police contingent will be deployed at the conference venue. "Our intelligence is already suggesting that there is a likelihood that there could be people coming from other provinces to come and disrupt a conference. We also want to make sure that during the era of the conference any people who are entering the Free State, whether it is a vehicle or any, they are searched and cleared. No one should enter the province with firearms or any dangerous weapons. So, we will be closing them from the outer area. We have got 18 clusters in the province."
The ruling party will hold its 53rd National Conference in 2012, a year in which the party celebrates its 100th anniversary. Together with the June 2012 Policy Conference, both events are important gatherings in the five-yearly cycle of the ruling-party as it deals with matters around policy-formulation and the election of the party's top leadership.
We will support Kgalema Motlanthe for deputy president
The 2012 National Conference is being watched closely because - like its 2007 predecessor - the ANC seems disjointed and fractured around the presidential succession debate and the alleged jostle for positions.
One has to remember though that the December 2012 conference is not only about leadership elections, but also about policy-making that will give South Africans an idea on how the party intends running Africa's economic powerhouse.
Meanwhile, the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans' Association (MKMVA) has since indicate its backing President Jacob Zuma for a second term as ANC leader.
"We will support Kgalema Motlanthe for deputy president, but if he contests the [presidency], the conference resolved to support comrade Cyril Ramaphosa [for deputy president]," chairperson Kebby Maphatsoe told reporters in Johannesburg.
