Marius Fransman says he is still the Provincial Leader of the Western Cape ANC and has filed an appeal at the Cape High Court contesting his expulsion from the party.
Fransman insists there is a factional plot to oust him, and calls his expulsion “unconstitutional”.
Fransman was suspended from the ANC for five years after it found him guilty on two counts of misconduct, following allegations of sexual harassment by Louisa Wynand, 21.
Also present at his press conference last Thursday were “material witnesses”, Mogamat Majiet and Donovan Cloete, who were with on the trip to Rustenberg in January for the ANC’s 104th birthday celebrations.
Wynand claimed Fransman sexually harassed her in their shared hotel room in Kimberley.
Majiet said he was shocked by her claims and says pictures taken of them on the road after the alleged incident shows her “smiling and happy”.
“She was never alone with Fransman... We were always all together or she was with me, smoking,” says Majiet.
Cloete says contrary to Wynand’s claims that he had met her for the first time the day he picked her up, they had gone out the week before.
“We ended up at Cubana in Green Point and thereafter she went home. Daar was net tyd vir ‘n piksoentjie, want sy moes die Sondag werk,” laughs Cloete.
Wynand was a hostess at the Asara Wine Estate in Stellenbosch when she met Fransman, who offered her a job.
Fransman said Wynand “was sent to destroy” him.
“She was very talkative and open on the trip. She said there were really 11 commandments, like her name, it says ‘Thou shalt destroy’. We all laughed about it at the time, not realising her true intention,” he said.
Fransman is asking the court to take specific action against top party leaders, including the acting chair of the party’s integrity committee, Susan Shabangu, and ANC General Secretary Gwede Mantashe, who he accuses of being behind the plot to oust him.