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The ANC’s KwaZulu-Natal leadership, smarting after Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa addressed a meeting of rebel party structures while campaigning in the province, wants his conduct discussed by its highest structures.
The backlash against Rampahosa, who addressed a South African National Civic Organisation meeting at Newcastle two weeks ago while campaigning for the ANC in the Nquthu by-election, continued today, with provincial secretary Super Zuma complaining that the presidential hopeful had lacked “that respect” associated with the ANC.
The attack on Ramaphosa – whose recent forays into KwaZulu-Natal, previously seen as safe territory for his potential opponent, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, included a visit to the Nazareth Baptist Church in the company of ousted ANC provincial chairperson Senzo Mchunu – was launched at a press briefing in Durban.
Zuma said the recent provincial executive committee meeting held the “firm view” that Ramaphosa’s failure to inform it of his Newcastle engagement “blatantly undermined a longstanding tradition of the movement”.
Describing the national civic organisation’s Chris Hani Memorial Lecture at Newcastle, where the ANC’s Emalahleni Region, a stronghold for Mchunu, has been dissolved as a “factional meeting”, Zuma said the provincial executive committee wanted the matter raised with secretary general Gwede Mantashe “for the attention of the national executive committee”.
Zuma said the failure to inform the provincial executive committee was a “tendency” that was “both divisive and introduces a completely new but also dangerous culture”.
Zuma said the province was not looking for a sanction against Ramaphosa, who downplayed the issue last week and defended his right to address ANC members and members of the public, but rather that the matter be “dealt with politically”.
Zuma said that neither Ramaphosa nor his office had briefed him about the Newcastle meeting earlier on the day when the two of them were campaigning together at Nquthu.
“Structures should be respected,” Zuma said, adding that the province didn’t want Ramaphosa “reduced” to addressing a “factional meeting”.
Zuma said the ANC in the province would march on Monday in opposition to the campaign to force President Jacob Zuma to step down.
Describing the “nationwide mass mobilisation against the ANC and its leadership” as “unprecedented” Zuma said there was a “growing confidence to openly challenge the ANC and its decisions”.
This was part of a “hidden strategy to delegitimise the president and ultimately the ANC so that power would change political hands in our country”.
Zuma said the provincial executive committee also wanted the president to appeal the decision of the North Gauteng High Court that he should explain his decision for his latest reshuffle.
Slamming the courts for running a “juristocracy”, Zuma said the separation of powers of government was being undermined by the courts.
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