Pan Africanist Congress president Letlapa Mphahlele will lift a decree that he declared five years ago essentially suspending the party's constitution.

The lifting of the decree is in preparation for the party's elective congress in July.

Mphahlele issued the decree in 2007 after internal squabbles threatened to destroy the party in the wake of its elective congress in 2006.

Party spokesman Mudini Maivha told Sowetan yesterday that Mphahlele would lift the decree to allow PAC members enough time to deliberate on the constitution and to nominate leaders.

"Such amendment would not be possible on a suspended constitution if the decree was in place."

Maivha attributed the instability to PAC members who lost elections during the party's congress in the 2006.

"The said crisis was precipitated by elements who respected PAC processes only as far as they allowed them to contests for positions at the 2006 congress in QwaQwa, Free State.

"When they failed to secure the positions they sought, they undermined the outcomes of that congress by sowing divisions, tribalism and factionalism. In the ensuing process, they started processes to launch their own parties with the intention to confuse PAC members and take them with them," he said.

Maivha said Mphahlele would lift the decree since he had managed to unite warring factions in the party.

"Since structural stability has returned to the PAC, the president found it critical to return the PAC to constitutionality. At the same time he decided on holding a congress."