ANC can still fix KZN crisis — Mkhize
ANC treasurer-general and presidential candidate Zweli Mkhize says he is confident that the party leadership crisis in KwaZulu-Natal can be resolved “within the family” via swift intervention by the party’s national leadership.
ANC treasurer-general and presidential candidate Zweli Mkhize says he is confident that the party leadership crisis in KwaZulu-Natal can be resolved “within the family” via swift intervention by the party’s national leadership.
Commenting on the fallout from the high court decision to declare the 2015 ANC provincial conference in KwaZuluNatal unlawful, Mkhize appealed to party members to refrain from any action that would worsen tension.
“Whether or not we were wronged or feel angry, we can still correct this,” he said at an AHI business forum meeting in Durban on Wednesday.
“The ANC cannot be governed by the courts or through the courts. It has to govern itself,” he said, noting that the victors and losers in the provincial leadership battle were “all part and parcel of the same family”.
If the leadership battle was allowed to fester in KwaZuluNatal, instability could spread further into the government, he warned.
“I am quite confident that the national leadership will be coming in … the leadership of the ANC is committed to coming back and pulling the groups together,” he said. On worries that the court battle could delay, or be used as a pretext to delay, the ANC’s national electoral conference in December, Mkhize said he was not aware of any moves to postpone the conference.
“No grounds must exist to interfere with that conference.”
The ANC treasurer-general said he was also aware of fears that party members could be “bought”, but he believed that the passion of ANC members to clean up the party should not be underestimated.
“How much money would you need to buy all of them? … No money can replace a good leadership which has the wisdom to take the country forward,” he said. “We cannot allow all the years of sacrifice to just go down”.
Responding to questions on the issue of state capture, Mkhize said the proposed commission of inquiry had to be “properly empowered” to investigate all allegations, including those against “some families”.
“Such a commission of inquiry would be a landmark that SA will look back on, so that we will always be on the lookout in future,” he said.
Solutions had to be found to move forward.
“Let’s make SA better because of this crisis.”
Mkhize urged business leaders to engage more closely with the government, suggesting that most leaders in business and government in other nations had grown up in the same schools. “They drink beer together and play golf together.
“We should all be in the same team,” he said, observing that if a zebra was shot, it would die, regardless of whether the bullet entered a white stripe or a black stripe.