Branches want him to be the president
South Africa needs a strong ANC and, at the moment, it is at its weakest, according to ANC presidential hopeful Mathews Phosa.
Phosa, who is contesting to succeed Jacob Zuma as party president in December, already has a plan on how he would run the country.
He said what was happening in the ANC was not new but he cannot sit back and allow the party to die.
“I am part of ‘let’s revive it’. I hear some are saying we are ready for a split after the December conference (and) that is my fear.
“They feel what is the point... It can’t be the fall back. We can’t give up on the ANC.”
Phosa has held several leadership positions in the ANC. In 2012, he left to be an ordinary party member after losing at the Mangaung conference where he contested the position of deputy president. Recently, he has been part of Umkhonto weSizwe council that wanted Zuma to step down following a constitutional court ruling on Nkandla and over the leaked Gupta e-mails.
The council is also unhappy with Zuma’s leadership style and had requested a consultative conference in July but it did not take place. “The president must go now. If he goes, that will open a new debate in the ANC,” Phosa said.
“[The] ANC is in denial. By right, [the] NEC [national executive committee] and NWC [national working committee] structures were supposed to have been dissolved. They are conflicted and have been protecting the president.”
He complained that there were no consequences for any wrongdoing by ANC leaders.
“The leaders support the president because they do not want to step down from their positions. I can tell you the president is going to be a very lonely man when his term expires. He won’t receive phone calls.”
Phosa claimed he was being guided by ANC branches for his decision to stand for the presidency in December.
“The country needs a unifying leader. We need a leader who will give the nation hope. We have destroyed the hope and we need a leader who will be inclusive.”
The former ANC treasurygeneral said he already had an economic plan on how to revive the economy, noting that the country needed a stable environment for investors and [to] come up with policies that would arrest the high levels of unemployment.
He added that he would invest in education, health system and also fight corruption.