The ANC has to apply its collective mind today on how it will react if the December conference collapses.

So said ANC stalwart Tokyo Sexwale, who found it difficult to disagree with former finance minister Trevor Manuel who raised the likelihood of it collapsing.

Sexwale said the leaders were too divided and that was the view society also held.

"Anyone who thinks it will be easy is self-delusional. The levels of hostility within the ranks... we are a thoroughly divided ANC," said Sexwale.

"All leaders say we are divided. ANC leaders are characterised by common views. Currently the common view is the division."

He made the remarks on Friday after Manuel predicted that the conference could collapse while credentials were being adopted.

Manuel said there wasn't much of a contest between the slates in Mangaung in 2012 when President Jacob Zuma was re-elected.

He said taxpayers' money was used to buy branches in Mangaung and this led to the manipulation of numbers - since then the number of branches have ballooned.

Manuel commented as Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba, in a meeting with investors in New York, confirmed to the SABC that one of the questions investors needed assurance about was whether the ANC elective conference would take place.

He assured them that it would.

The ANC is being torn apart over who should succeed Zuma as president of the ANC.

The frontrunners are Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

ANC branches have nominated the two for the position of president, but it is the provincial general councils at the end of the month that will give an indication of who is likely to win.

Some branch meetings were marred by violence when members disagreed about who to choose.

Sexwale said the issue required that the ANC leadership prepare for all eventualities or "posterity will pass the most vitriolic judgement on us". "We all have a view that we are divided, but we are still going ahead [with conference] without a plan.

"One of the critical things for the ANC leadership to consider is that we may leave the conference with an interim structure of people who are not interested in standing for any position.

"I count myself among such people. However, my wish is that this does not happen and we leave the conference with an outcome," he added.