Delegates at the KwaZulu-Natal ANC's provincial elective-conference-turned-consultative-conference booed the party's national chairperson, Gwede Mantashe, and sang songs asking what former president Jacob Zuma had done.
The conference has since been adjourned.
A drawn out stand-off took place at the University of Zululand as delegates refused repeated pleas to allow Mantashe to speak.
Mantashe was due to deliver a keynote address on behalf of President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is currently at the G7 summit in Canada.
"If this is an ANC conference, I will speak," said Mantashe, who first pretended to dance and sing along to the songs being sung about him.
Earlier, the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg stopped the elective conference from going ahead. The decision has angered several delegates, some of whom have threatened that there will be fighting if the elective conference didn't go ahead.
Journalists were ordered to leave the room, after numerous attempts to calm the crowd in the hall.
Provincial executive committee chairperson Sihle Zikalala had offered to hear them out, allowing delegates a chance to raise their views about both the cancelled conference and their objection to being addressed by their own national chairperson.
