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ANC KwaZulu-Natal chairperson Sihle Zikalala has called for the resignation of Bheki Cele from the ANC’s National Executive Committe given that he admitted to failing to lead.
“It is a good thing for them to say (they are failing to lead) but so that we can see that they really are failing, we need for that leader to say I am taking my coat and leaving. That is a genuine thing that leaders must do,” Zikalala said.
The chairperson was referring to comments made by Cele when he addressed branches of the ANC in Umlazi, outside of Durban, on Sunday.
Commenting on the current legal challenge to the legitimacy of the provincial executive committee – led by Zikalala – and other issues plaguing the ANC, Cele said that court challenges spoke to the failure of the NEC.
The NEC is the highest decision-making body outside of conferences in the ANC.
“We must be embarrassed; I am embarrassed. History will have to punish us for allowing the courts to lead us,” Cele told the branches.
“If we continue to fail you, don’t stop taking us to court. Do it until we learn to lead.”
Hitting back at Cele – who has served as a leader at all levels of ANC structures in KZN – Zikalala said that he was perpetuating divisions in the party.
“It is unfortunate that NEC members, instead of calling comrades together and saying ‘we hear there is a court case, comrade so and so, let us talk’, ANC NEC members go to comrades and say ‘go to court if we fail to lead, go to court’.
“The courts can’t tell us how the unity of the ANC must look. We are members of the ANC, we must work for the unity of the ANC. If NEC members stop calling us and sitting us down and talking to us but choose instead to come with divisive messages, that means that they have lost morality and political consciousness and the way in which they must provide leadership,” Zikalala charged.
“It can happen that some of the comrades had political consciousness, but with time they have lost political consciousness. That is why they grandstand instead of uniting comrades which they see are divided. They perpetuate divisions. If comrade Bheki Cele wants to resign if he sees that there is a weakness in the ANC NEC, he should be the first to do so. And he should say ‘I myself wont sit on that weak structure’.”
