ANC’s national executive affirms Zuma support

JOHANNESBURG — The ANC’s national executive committee did not support calls for President Jacob Zuma to step down, party secretary general Gwede Mantashe said yesterday.

“We affirm him as the president of the party and the country,” Mantashe said at a briefing on the outcomes of the NEC meeting, held in Pretoria over the weekend.

This was the party’s final scheduled gathering for 2016.

NEC member and Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom is understood to have raised the motion of no confidence in Zuma on Saturday.

It was proposed that a secret ballot be held. Mantashe and his deputy Jessie Duarte however said this was not how the party did things.

“All members of the NEC had an opportunity to raise, in the meeting, the issues they feel that are hurting the movement,” said Mantashe.

He said the 80-plus NEC members were allowed to speak freely, regardless of whether they were for or against Zuma.

Mantashe said the NEC discussed the serious threats facing the national democratic revolution: racism, ethnic nationalism, and monopoly capital.

These were among the issues the party hoped to address at its policy conference in June 2017. Some party members and veterans had called for the ANC to hold a consultative conference, to discuss its future.

Mantashe said a consultative conference would form part of the policy conference. The first two days of the event would be dedicated to introspection and “selfcorrection”.

“The first two days of the conference will be utilised to assess the state of the organisation as envisaged in the veterans’ call,” said Mantashe.— New