ANC NEC disempowered by rejection of Zuma by alliance
THE FACT that President Jacob Zuma continues to cling to power despite the many controversies surrounding him is a serious indictment on the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC).
This was the view of political analyst Dumisani Hlophe yesterday, as the ANC bigwigs again retreated to its usual hideout at St George’s Hotel in Tshwane to thrash out crucial matters around Zuma’s administration, and the fallout between the ANC and its Tripartite Alliance partners, the SACP and labour federation Cosatu.
The l at t e r re c e ntly declared Zuma a persona non grata at its official events, in what is an indication of the president’s waning power, while the SACP has been vocal in bashing him for what it sees as his divisive leadership style. Both organisations have called on the president to resign, saying they had lost confidence in his leadership.
Political analyst Dr Dumisani Hlophe said it was “more damning” for the NEC to be seen to be endorsing a president that had fallen out of favour with the ANC’s key alliance partners.
“Let’s leave the president out of this for a second. Look, the NEC as a whole goes into this event wounded because it means, as the leadership of the alliance, it’s not recognised by its alliance partners through the president.
“If you have a president of the alliance who is told by the biggest labour federation in the country that you can’t speak at our events, now that is bad. You can’t rule out the SACP following suit,” said Hlophe.
Cosatu’s decision to bar Zuma from its events came after he was humiliated, heckled and prevented from addressing a May Day rally in Bloemfontein. Calls for Zuma to step down have been precipitated by the reports of the so-called state capture, allegedly by the politically connected Gupta family, who are his friends.
Eskom, and the comical return of its chief executive Brian Molefe after his resignation in the wake of a damning report by former public protector Thuli Madonsela linking him to the Guptas, has in recent times become the symbol of state capture.
The clamour for Zuma to step down heightened on Thursday when ANC stalwarts wrote to the NEC in their last-ditch attempt to convince the party’s structure to recall Zuma. Almost simultaneously, academics released a report warning against corruption in Zuma’s administration, that they said amounted to a silent coup.
Also on the same day, former president Kgalema Motlanthe lashed out at morally unjust leadership in the country, saying the post-colonial experience had been “tainted by morally compromised leadership, corruption, lack of ethics and therefore poor governance”.
Speculation is that another motion of no confidence will be tabled at the NEC.
Hlope said the frequency of such a motion was “more damaging when it comes from within the ANC, regardless of the number of people supporting it”.
“Such calls for him to step down are now becoming too frequent. If they ( Zuma’s detractors) don’t win, the motion will still feed into this narrative that there is a crisis of leadership in the country.”