ANC clapback against Zuma has begun
Kwazulu-natal leader calls on the party to ‘hit hard at JZ’ over his defection and launch of MK
Kwazulu-natal ANC provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo has called on the party and its allies to “hit hard” at Jacob Zuma over his formation of the breakaway umkhonto wesizwe Party (MK) while remaining in the governing party.
Mtolo and his Eastern Cape counterpart, Lulama Ngcukayitobi, tore into Zuma over his move at political gatherings on Monday, describing him as a liar whose actions had caused the party’s decline.
The two provinces are among the ANC’S most influential, while Kwazulu-natal, Zuma’s home province, has thus far been highly supportive of him, at one point defying the party’s national leadership to support him at court during his corruption trial.
Mtolo has called on the ANC and its allies to “hit hard at JZ” to force his supporters in the party — and its election machinery — to show themselves through their “pain”, so that they can be exposed.
The fightback began at the weekend during the run-up to the ANC’S 8 January anniversary celebrations in Mpumalanga, and escalated on Monday, when the party’s provincial secretaries and alliance partners began to weigh in on the matter.
Addressing one of the 8 January build-up events, ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula admitted that the ANC had lied to protect Zuma for spending R238 million in taxpayers’ money on an extension to his private home at Nkandla.
Mbalula said the party would take a decision on how to deal with Zuma — who it had defended at great cost — at the appropriate time and after extensive discussion by the party’s national executive committee (NEC).
It is understood that last weekend’s NEC meeting, held ahead of the 8 January celebrations, did not discuss the breakaway and that the matter had been deferred to the NEC meeting held on Thursday night.
However, in the interim, ANC leaders have gone on the offensive against Zuma and his supporters, using the 8 January build-up and other political platforms around the country to hit back.
Mtolo, addressing a South African Democratic Teachers Union meeting in Durban, accused Zuma and his daughter Duduzile of appropriating the name of MK for “their own personal selfish benefit”.
He said Zuma had “peddled blatant lies” against the ANC at his media briefing and that his claim that members were being expelled without process being followed was “false”.
Zuma had been an ANC leader when people such as Julius Malema, now the Economic Freedom Fighters leader, and United Democratic Movement head Bantu Holomisa were expelled from the party.
“For JZ to now cry like a helpless individual on the expulsion of members who commit serious misconduct is not only falsehood but exposes how far he can go to mislead society only to serve his personal interests,” Mtolo said.
He said Zuma’s character was such that he would “never take any responsibility for wrongdoing” and that this was why he was trying to blame the current leadership under Cyril Ramaphosa for the drop in support for the ANC.
“We wish to remind JZ that the ANC started to lose support under him as president,” Mtolo said.
“This decline started from 2009, taking the ANC away from the twothirds majority it gained in the 2004 elections. This decline has been there since, including the 2016 local government elections, where he was still president of the ANC, where we lost many metros,” Mtolo said.
Zuma has claimed that the party’s structures had been bought off to support Ramaphosa since 2017, but Mtolo said that the issue of financial influence on the outcome of ANC conferences had first been raised by Nelson Mandela when the party took power in 1994.
“Once again, it shows how selective JZ can be to serve his personal convenience,” Mtolo said.
He said Zuma’s claim that the current leadership was the one which “invented the use of money in the ANC” at the 2017 conference was “not backed by evidence”.
“Therefore, as the movement collectively, we are duty-bound to dismiss these lies that are peddled to achieve narrow selfish interests,” Mtolo said.
Zuma’s “lies” had led to actual former members of the ANC’S nowdisbanded armed wing umkhonto wesizwe leaving the ANC with him and this needed to be challenged, Mtolo said. “Why would some ex-mk combatants follow a man who was a president for a full nine years but left them destitute? It is because they believe his lies,” he said.
“If we are to be crude, why would they follow a man who used R246 million of taxpayers’ money to build his home — an amount that would have built 2733 houses for ex-mk combatants? Because his lies have not been confronted.”
In the past, “political charlatans” had been allowed to get away with crimes because people believed their falsehoods, which had not been challenged by the party.
Mtolo said they would go on a verbal offensive against Zuma to expose his supporters who were still in the party: “We must hit hard at JZ so that those who are within … can come out to the open to display their pain.
“This is important because some of them are in our election structures but still sympathise with a leader of the opposition.
“JZ is now no different from the leader of the DA,” he said. “They are in the same Whatsapp group.”
A member of the Kwazulu-natal provincial leadership, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that despite early reluctance to come out hard against Zuma and his supporters, they would no longer hold back.
“We will go for it now. No more retreating. No more being nice,” the ANC leader said.
The ANC provincial office has already asked regions to compile lists of those who are active in Zuma’s party or who are supportive of it in order that the party might act against them.
The provincial executive committee member said while there were supporters of Zuma on the PEC and the regional executive committees (REC), they were not likely to make any move now until the list process for this year’s provincial and national elections was completed.
“The regions are fine. So is the province. There will be individuals who moved like what happened in ethekwini with their REC, but not in the PEC at this stage,” they said.
There were concerns over PEC members close to the Zuma family — and over leaders who had historically been closely associated with him — and a fair amount of suspicion over whether they would stay in the ANC and try to undermine it from within ahead of the elections.
Support for Zuma’s party has been apparent across the province, where people have turned out in droves for meet-and-greet events with him and the emerging MK leadership.
At a leadership level, only ethekwini REC member Simphiwe Mpungose has defected to the Zuma party, where he is acting as provincial co-ordinator.
The ANC’S alliance partners have also turned on Zuma, including the South African National Civic Organisation, of which he was recently elected Kwazulu-natal chair.
While the civic body’s Kwazulunatal leadership has refused to act against Zuma, its president, Richard Hlophe, said at the ANC’S celebrations at the weekend that they would be doing so.
‘We must hit hard at JZ so that those who are within … can come out to the open to display their pain’