ANC chief whip under fire for calling on NEC to quit

ANCYL and uMkhonto veterans tell chief whip to leave if he wants to

ALLIES of President Jacob Zuma in the ANC have called on Jackson Mthembu, the party chief whip in the National Assembly, to stop lobbying ational executive committee members to quit.

The ANC Youth League and uMkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) said yesterday that if Mthembu wanted to go, he had to do it alone.

Mthembu is a senior member of the NEC and has been the chief whip of the ANC in the National Assembly after taking over from Stone Sizani late last year. Sizani is now South Africa’s ambassador to Germany.

In an unprecedented call at the weekend, Mthembu called on the NEC to quit due to the party’s poor showing in the August 3 local government polls. He said the ANC could not even defend Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, who is facing fraud charges.

Mthembu said at the National Working Committee last week the charges against Gordhan were politically motivated.

ANCYL spokesman Mlondi Mkhize and MKMVA national chairman Kebby Maphatsoe called on Mthembu to stop lobbying other NEC members to resign.

They said the door was open for him to go if he wanted to.

Mkhize said Mthembu had to produce evidence on his claims that charges against Gordhan were politically motivated.

He further accused Mthembu of political grandstanding by calling on the NEC to resign. He said Mthembu could not discuss internal ANC matters in the public domain.

“He must be responsible as there is no need to share information on the NWC. He cannot call on others to resign from the NEC, he must resign himself,” said Mkhize.

Maphatsoe said it would be the best day if Mthembu quit in the morning instead of trying to get other NEC members to go with him.

“The best thing for him to do is the first thing he must do in the morning is resign. We will be very happy if he resigns in the morning,” said Maphatsoe

“If he is brave he must resign. He must stop lobbying other members of the NEC to resign,” he said.

ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa said the NEC would not be able to resign en masse, even if its members wanted to.

He said the NEC, which is the highest decision-making structure of the ANC between conferences, was “accountable to its branches”.

“It cannot be in a position to take a decision at a whim and quit. There must be extensive consultations with the branches before any decision is taken.”

But the biggest decision-making structure in the ANC was its national elective conference, where more than 4000 branches took resolutions and voted for new leaders.

Kodwa said it would not be possible for all members of the NEC to leave at once.