ON WEDNESDAY, former defence minister and ANC national chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota convened a media conference at which he told the nation that the ruling party was on the verge of breaking up.
“It seems we are serving divorce papers,” he told reporters.
Half an hour later, ANC treasurer Mathews Phosa said the ANC would not “throw stones” at Lekota. Instead, Phosa said, the ANC would meet Lekota the following day to discuss Lekota’s complaints about the organisation.
Phosa said their marriage had not “irretrievably broken down”. At the same conference, ANC president Jacob Zuma seemed to be singing a different tune, warning Lekota and company not to use ANC structures to organise any rebellion against the party.
Earlier, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said Lekota’s move had been in the pipeline even before Polokwane. Also on Thursday, the day of the meeting, ANC Youth League president Julius Malema said “we”, presumably the ANC, would “sign Lekota’s divorce papers”.
While it is unclear why the ANC is communicating different messages to the public on this issue, Lekota has moved to set the record straight.
During a visit to City Press offices on Friday, Lekota said that the ANC, true to its current bullying nature, chose not to deal with his grievances about the organisation’s purported deviation from the values enshrined in the Freedom Charter, but sought to bully him.
Below are some of the comments from the former defence minister, who resigned from cabinet after the ANC sacked President Thabo Mbeki from his position as head of state.
Lekota said he would finally meet ANC treasurer Mathews Phosa tomorrow but was unsure what the agenda for the meeting was.
He said Phosa had been trying to meet him from as far back as June, about a different matter.
That was long before this week’s dramatic events.
On “100% Zulu boy” T-shirts
“You have a (former) deputy president of the ANC who allowed people to produce t-shirts in his name, and put his face there. He didn’t give them money to produce them as far as I am aware, but to allow members of the organisation to wear a t-shirt that proclaims tribalism, this is wrong.”
On Zuma’s “uMshini Wam”
“You will not find in our history that the activists of the movement will sing songs like they are just Millie Jackson’s pop songs. They must sing songs that advocate the policy, that announce policy, that popularise policy of the ANC. They motivate people to do what the policy is. Now you teach people to sing songs whose time has passed, songs which are essentially advocating that we should defeat the democracy and the peace that we have now. You must look at the Freedom Charter.”
On ANC Youth League president Julius Malema’s comments that he would kill for Zuma
“What happens to the security of the people? Where is the call for peace (as proclaimed in the Freedom Charter)? When you say to people: ‘We will kill for Zuma’, you are saying therefore that if you don’t elect this guy, ‘you are going to have it and we’ve got our machine-guns here already.’ What happens to ‘the people shall govern?’ When you say ‘the people shall govern’, they should be able to vote and choose who they want to lead them.”
On the ANC call to find a political solution to Zuma’s legal woes
“What has happened to the clause in the Freedom Charter ‘all shall be equal before the law’? If you have a political solution for one criminal case, are you going to have political solutions for each and every case of all citizens that are arrested?”
On Zuma’s theory that there is a political conspiracy to prevent him from becoming the country’s president
“Who was born to be president of the ANC? How can I say people have plans against me as if to be president of the ANC is hereditary; as if I was born for that?”
On his meeting with ANC treasurer Mathews Phosa
“That meeting, by the way, was not called because of this development. Mathews Phosa asked me for this meeting in about June or July. It would be arranged, it wouldn’t happen, it would be arranged and it wouldn’t happen. On one occasion, I came from Pretoria, I woke up at 4.30am to do my exercises and then rushed here because I was supposed to have breakfast with him. When I got there, he was not there.
I had the breakfast alone. After that, I got back into my car and drove to Pretoria. This had nothing to do with these issues. It was a matter of him wanting to see me about some other matter which I don’t want to discuss. How this meeting has to be linked up with this, I don’t know.”
And his meeting with ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe?
“I was called by comrade Kgalema, who was supposed to see me with Max Sisulu. I went to Luthuli House. They were in a meeting. I waited a bit and then Kgalema came out and said I should wait a bit because Max had just gone out.
“He says he thinks Max must be in the building. He sends somebody to look for him. That guy comes back and says: ‘Max has left’. So I look at him, he looks at me. I also sit back and look at him. He then tells me he has spoken to the SG (Gwede Mantashe); that the SG must personally address the issue of my concern in the letter. I said: ‘Thank you very much, deputy president, and wished him well.’
“Now, while I’m gone, the following day I hear Mantashe in the media saying he does not know what meeting I’m talking about. I don’t know whether he says the deputy president (Motlanthe) lied to me or who lied to who. Now, there is the Mathews thing. How it got to the media, I don’t know.
On Malema’s remarks that the ANC will sign Lekota’s divorce papers.
“I don’t talk to Malema. Malema is a baby. I talk to the leadership of the ANC, the mother body. The Youth League cannot represent the ANC. They can send him to go and say those things, I won’t respond. I want to hear what these big heads have to say.”
On statements that the ANC will ask former president Thabo Mbeki to campaign for them before next year’s elections
“I found it very strange the other day that Malema was saying they want Thabo Mbeki to campaign for them.
“How do you go to the nation and say this guy is discredited and we have lost confidence in him, recall him immediately, we can’t even wait for the elections to come. Get rid of him because he is a major burden on us, and then a week or so later you come out and say no we want him to go and tell the people to vote for us. But you have told the people the guy is a piece of junk.”
On Zuma’s warning to Lekota not to use ANC structures to hold meetings
“The ANC has never been a prison. It’s not a prison. You go in there if you like. If you don’t like it, you don’t go in there. Those people, if they want to go to a meeting, they will go.”
On how debate is muzzled in the ANC
“Sooner or later, if you give political power to characters like that, they will suppress everybody in this country. Nobody will be allowed to say something against them, as in the case of Libya. You cannot say anything in Libya against (Colonel Muammar) Gaddafi. As soon as you do that, you will find yourself arrested. There is a cult of the person developing in the ANC.”
On the crisis in the ANC
“We may have been friends and comrades for a long time, but it’s like what Jesus Christ says in the bible: ‘I have not brought peace but trouble. I am going to say things which are going to separate man from wife.’
“We are at this point. Now we must implement equality before the law. When you implement equality before the law, you may have to arrest your brother. The commitment is that nobody must steal. You can’t protect thieves, whether they are of the Lekota family or not. This is very painful and unpleasant but that’s the hard lesson of life. It’s the only way in which we can sustain our democracy.
“We cannot wait for disaster to happen.”
CITY PRESS -11/10/2008 17:34 - (SA)
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