African National Congress (ANC) stalwarts have decided not to take part in the first two days of the party’s fifth National Policy Conference, which will kick off on Friday, and the group will instead plan a national consultative conference for September.

The development follows calls from the stalwarts earlier this year for the party to hold separate policy and consultative conferences, the latter being intended for the party to discuss how to stem its loss of support.

Addressing the media at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg on Thursday stalwart Murphy Morobe said the failure of the ANC top six to cooperate with the stalwarts was one of the reasons why they decided to stay away.

“It is not acceptable that other ANC members remain silent about the [state] of this country. Doing so betrays our fallen heroes who were members of the ANC,” he said.

Morobe added that the stalwarts could not be silent when “comrades and honest State employees were killed when they spoke against corruption”.

ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe claimed the party had been planning to meet with the stalwarts during the first two days of the policy conference.

Morobe said some of the stalwarts would attend the rest of the policy conference as ANC branch members.

He emphasised that the stalwarts remained open to further discussions with the ANC.

Stalwart Mavuso Msimang said those who were not worried about the state of the ruling party were the ones occupying high positions.

“Unless we embark on drastic steps to work on the serious issues faced by the party, there is no way us being there [at the conference] will change anything.”

Another stalwart Cheryl Carolus said while the ruling party had the best policies, implementation was a problem. She added that the recently released emails, which allegedly highlight State capture, were shocking.

“President Jacob Zuma continues to appoint his cronies that loot our State resources. There are a number of shocking and alarming emails that make serious allegations [against government officials] but till today nobody has been challenged. I would expect for our President to fire these people,” she said.