A high-level delegation from the Hamas Movement has arrived in South Africa as guests of the African National Congress (ANC) the ruling party to attend its 54th national conference which will be held in Johannesburg to elect a new leader.
The Palestinian movements Hamas and Fatah have joined other participating delegations representing ruling parties and ANC partner organizations from around the world.
An informed source from Hamas told the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) that members of Hamas’s political bureau Mohamed Nazzal and Maher Obeid would attend the four-day ANC conference that would kick off on Saturday.
The source affirmed that some parties including the Israeli ambassador to South Africa exercised pressures in an attempt to prevent the participation of Hamas in the ANC conference.
Following a meeting between Hamas and ANC officials in 2015 the two sides have established brotherly relations.
According to the source the Hamas leadership is keen on following the democratic process within the ANC and interested especially in the discussions that will take place at the conference regarding a recommendation from the party’s July policy conference that proposed the downgrading of the South African diplomatic mission in Israel.
“Hamas has expressed support for the proposal and hopes that it will be adopted as a conference resolution” the source said.
“The ANC’s adoption of a resolution on downgrading or shutting down the South African embassy in Tel Aviv will take Palestinian solidarity to a new level” Mohamed Nazzal head of the Hamas delegation told the PIC.
“It (the resolution) will establish South Africa at the forefront especially in Africa of solidarity efforts to liberate the Palestinian people and we have confidence that ANC delegates will consider all this and will adopt this resolution enthusiastically” Nazzal added.
“The Palestinians and South Africans together must build a global coalition that will deepen the isolation of the apartheid Israeli state” he stressed.
Apart from meeting leaders of South African political parties the Hamas delegation intends to meet with religious figures and officials from NGOs and Palestine solidarity groups.
The ANC conference is an event held every five years to elect a new leader for the party.
President Jacob Zuma whose second five-year term as the nation’s head of state runs until 2019 is expected to step down as ANC head at this leadership election conference. The contest for the party leadership is between his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa.
The president is backing Dlamini-Zuma 68 a former cabinet minister and chairwoman of the African Union Commission to succeed him as head of the ANC and the party’s next presidential candidate.
