I’m no bag carrier, Mantashe says about succession race
THE ANC’s presidential succession debate took a new twist yesterday, with the party’s secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, hinting he may also be interested in the top job.
Mantashe was addressing hundreds of SA Communist Party supporters at the East London City Hall, and dismissed reports that he was in the Eastern Cape to lobby support for ANC presidential hopeful Cyril Ramaphosa.
He said he could not accept being reduced to a bag carrier or a “runner” for another man.
“We’re not runners of a certain candidate, but leaders of the movement,” Mantashe said, to loud applause.
“We have a right to be candidates ourselves. We are not bag carriers of anyone.”
The event was held by the Young Communist League (YCL) to launch its annual Joe Slovo Right to Learn Campaign.
It comes as the ANC is scheduled to hold its national general council meeting, which precedes the national congress in December at which the party’s new leaders will be elected.
Mantashe said ANC members must continue debating principles around the kind of leadership they wanted, to take the organisation forward.
“The ANC will always have to elect leaders from time to time but, in doing so, it must seek to elect leaders who have the qualities and capacity to deal with challenges,” he said.
“So that challenge says, we cannot talk to slates that are thrown at the branches.
“We must debate the programme and then debate the name, because everything must be an effort to put a team together that will be able to deal with everything, including the challenges of the time.”
The ANC’s own guiding document, “Through the eye of the needle”, warned against lobbyists and individuals with selfish ambitions, Mantashe said.
“We have also been warned against those who want us to field their relatives as well as those with personal interest.
“That is where the value of wisdom of people like Joe Slovo will come in handy to the today’s many challenges.”
Speaking before Mantashe, SACP second deputy general secretary Solly Mapaila slammed ill-disciplined leaders within the ANC.
“Many things go wrong in the movement. There is collective leadership but they are shifted to one centre that is coordinated through the secretary-general’s office.
“That office is undermined by illdisciplined leaders. That office must fix the ANC,” Mapaila said.
Mapaila, a fierce Zuma critic, warned that if the ANC failed to take action against people who manipulate membership by buying votes, the credibility of the December conference would be undermined.
“We must dismantle factions in the ANC, not just by word, but take action against leaders involved in [vote buying]. If you [Mantashe] fail to do that, you will not have a good conference,” he said.
The YCL was expected to throw its weight behind Ramaphosa as their preferred presidential candidate.
ANC provincial secretary Oscar Mabuyane used glowing words to describe Mantashe at the meeting.
Mabuyane said Mantashe was an educationist who knows the “importance of not just using one’s natural intelligence but to go on to study further”.
“Those are the kind of leaders we need,” he said, in what could be a veiled reference to Zuma, who has no formal schooling.