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The alleged fightback campaign by Jacob Zuma loyalists may be directly aimed at President Cyril Ramaphosa and those loyal to his cause but its implications pose a far more greater threat to working class South Africans.
This was the warning offered by South African Communist Party (SACP) secretary Blade Nzimande as he addressed delegates at South Africa’s largest union – Cosatu’s – 13th congress in Midrand on Tuesday.
“This fightback is not solely directed at the president of the ANC or the republic; it is actually directed at the working class and the poor. The fightback is directed towards South Africans who want to try and rescue the country from some of its darkest days and from forces who tried to steal it,” said Nzimande.
He said that Zuma loyalists were not fighting for their reinstatement but they were fighting the process that had exposed them as being complicit towards state capture.
“The working class are the ones who suffer the most when funds meant for service delivery are deviated to benefit a minority who have captured government officials and departments,” said Nzimande.
He labelled the fightback from those loyal to Zuma as a “resistance” to the cleansing process which commenced when the current ANC leadership began rooting out those implicated in state capture.
On Sunday City Press reported that Ramaphosa’s bitter opponents within the ANC were now aiming their guns at his deputy, David Mabuza, and were working to prevent him from returning to his post after next year’s elections.
READ: Mabuza targeted by opponents within ANC
Reacting to these media reports, Nzimande said “we even pointed out as the SACP where we think this fightback is coming from. We are therefore not surprised at all about talks now of political plots”.
Nzimande also called on the tripartite alliance to discuss allegations of a plot against Ramaphosa at its next alliance summit.
On Monday Ramaphosa set the tone as he addressed those in attendance at Cosatu’s 13th national congress. He openly challenged those plotting against him to come out into the open.
“We should not spend time on counter-revolutionary imaginations of weakening this African National Congress either in dark corners or wherever. This must come to an end,” said Ramaphosa.
Nzimande echoed similar sentiments and called for the isolation of those plotting against Ramaphosa as they were “not only a threat to the ANC” but “a threat to our revolution as a whole”.
He added that: “We are convinced as the communist party that we were recently on the eve of a mafia state” and called for those implicated not to be let back into political leadership.
Without mentioning him by name‚ Nzimande slammed former president Jacob Zuma for arguing that there was no state capture as well as for exiling him from his former role as minister of higher education.
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