ANC CONFERENCE DELAYED!

The African National Congress' National Executive Committee is still locked up in a meeting. 

This resulted in the ANC conference not starting as scheduled. 

The conference was expected to kick off at 8:00 on Saturday.

The NEC is discussing court judgments against the KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and North West's Bojanala regional conferences.

The court judgments have barred more than 100 delegates from the three provinces from taking part in the voting process.

News24 reports that the three provinces were headed to courts to appeal the judgments, with the North West saying once it has lodged an appeal, affected delegates will attend the conference.

But other leaders have said this risks the legitimacy of the conference.

They have argued that affected delegates should be barred from attending the conference as their branch meetings were declared "unconstitutional" by the courts, but if they attend they should not be given voting powers at the conference.

On Friday, allegations of manipulation of the registration process and buying of delegates to influence the outcome of the elections were rife.

WhatsApp messages alleging that certain party leaders were changing names of delegates chosen by branches with those who supported their presidential candidate were also circulating.

The allegations and court judgments are expected to be raised when credentials are supposed to be adopted. A long and heated battle that could derail the much anticipated conference is expected.