ANC warned of internal revolt
THE governing party has been warned that it could find itself facing an internal revolt when members who have to vacate their positions because of the step-aside resolution refuse to abide by the decision.
Xolani Dube, a political analyst from the Xubera Institute for Research and Development, says the resolution has been drafted in such a way that it is unenforceable.
Dube’s warning comes as supporters of corruption-indicted Zandile Gumede, the former eThekwini mayor and KZN legislature MPL, yesterday told her to stay put.
Gumede’s supporters say that she has suffered enough and point out that she was cleared by the KZN provincial integrity commission to resume her party duties.
The senior KZN leaders and 20 others are facing corruption, money laundering and fraud charges emanating from a questionable waste contract of R320 million (VAT excluded) in 2017.
The State alleges that Gumede and several of her family members accepted bribes from some of the service providers. Gumede and her supporters deny the charges. The trial had been set down for June in the Durban High Court and her supporters expect her to win the case.
Dube said the open defiance by Gumede’s supporters should be treated as a warning shot about the incoming chaos when members have to step aside on April 30 this year.
It is unclear whether Gumede’s name is part of the 13 submitted to Luthuli House, the ANC national headquarters, by Mdumiseni Ntuli, the KZN ANC provincial secretary, but her supporters have stated that asking her to step aside would be wrong.
Spokesperson of the supporters, Ntando Khuzwayo (a pro-Zandile Gumede councillor in eThekwini Municipality), advanced 13 reasons why the ex-mayor should not step aside. Among them was that the ANC in the province acted in a factional manner and victimised Gumede before eventually firing her as the mayor in August 2019.
“After her appointment to the legislature, she was immediately asked to step aside for the third time and was subjected to a provincial integrity commission process, which later cleared her. She returned to the legislature and now, in 2021, the ANC has submitted her name for the fourth round of step aside.
“In its statement, the PEC (provincial executive committee) acknowledged that the NPA (National Prosecuting Authority) was wrong to arrest Zandile Gumede and later charge her,” Khuzwayo said.
Furthermore, Khuzwayo said the objectives of the step-aside resolution were not clear and the resolution itself should be subjected to the scrutiny of the pending national general council (NGC).
Khuzwayo added that their proposal to the party was that the ANC should only act against Gumede if she was found guilty.
“Should she be found guilty, the ANC can then ask her to step aside if she has no appetite to appeal.”
ANC national spokesperson Pule Mabe was mum when asked about the exact number of names submitted by the provinces of officials who are expected to step aside at the end of the month.
THE NAVEL-gazing at the ANC’s Luthuli House is fast having far-reaching ramifications for the country.
By now South Africans have come to realise that when the ANC sneezes, the whole country catches pneumonia. After all, the 109-year-old liberation-turned-political party is the government of the day.
Since coming to power in 1994 the party has not known peace.
The party of John Langalibalele Dube, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Albert Luthuli, Oliver Reginald Tambo and Nelson Mandela has been reduced to a battle ground. The once-glorious movement, unbanned by the erstwhile apartheid government in 1990, was voted in overwhelmingly by the majority of South Africans in the first democratic elections on April 27, 1994. From the onset, what looked like a fight between those from exile and those who remained fighting apartheid flames in the country, soon degenerated into what seemed to be ethnic divisions – amaXhosa versus amaZulu.
From then, it has been a downward spiral, with factions and slates, especially after every elective conference taking place every five years to elect the party’s leadership. Since its 52nd national conference in Polokwane in 2007, every ANC leadership has emerged bruised and almost bloodied.
Currently the party’s secretary-general, Ace Magashule, is facing corruption charges over the R250 million Free State asbestos roofing scandal and is out on R200 000 bail pending the matter going to trial in the high court in Bloemfontein.
The party is now facing another mountain to climb, to see Magashule stepping aside at month end pending his case, in line with the resolutions of the top structures of the ANC. He seems reluctant to do so. As if that is not enough, almost everyone in the governing party is tainted or implicated in some form of corruption.
The Number One citizen is embroiled in the CR17 campaign funding controversy, refusing to unseal the files that will shed light on who funded the campaign that propelled him to Union Buildings. While the governing party is embroiled in its own internal power struggles, the governance of the country has taken a back seat. We have a shambolic Covid-19 vaccine roll-out, negative economic growth, a struggling economy, high unemployment, decaying social fabric and many other societal ills.
Just when will the ANC govern?