Leadership tensions raging within the ANC in the Free State are not entirely new.

Leadership tensions raging within the ANC in the Free State are not entirely new.

The current round of tensions have led to some members of the party challenging party decisions taken at a regional ANC conference in the Bloemfontein high court.

Last week the Bloemfontein high court postponed an application for an interdict by four members of the ANC's Kroonstad region to suspend the Fezile Dabi region's conference, that took place earlier this year.

The members allege that the regional conference, held in Oranjeville, in February, contravened the ANC's constitution.

Typically the ANC has underplayed the dispute. Provincial leader Ace Magashule has described the court dispute as a display of "pockets of unhappiness".

Free State has been the ANC's most fractious province. Local tensions date back to the ANC chairman Mosiuoa Lekota's reign as premier.

Previously leadership disputes revolved around Lekota and Magashule - who was the preferred candidate for the premiership but was overlooked.

Since then Magashule has always loomed in the background - nursing unhappiness over his continued marginalisation but exercising his influence quietly.

Therefore the current saga is merely an articulation of the ANC leadership conundrum, which will most likely not be resolved in the foreseeable future.