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Speaking at the 30th anniversary celebration of the National Health, Education & Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) in Mahikeng, North West, earlier today, former KwaZulu-Natal premier and ANC secretary-general hopeful Senzo Mchunu took a swipe at the controversial Gupta family.
He said the country had been given over to “three Indian boys”, who he also accused of using money to influence the outcome of the ANC’s electoral conference.
“We’re going to the conference in December to reclaim our country.”
Nehawu, like most of Cosatu’s affiliates, has declared its support for Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to succeed President Jacob Zuma.
The union invited Mchunu to speak at the event, which was held in a province that is led by Supra Mahumapelo, who has been linked to Ramaphosa’s political nemesis, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
During his speech, Mchunu blamed Zuma for causing divisions within the fractured ANC by declaring his support for Dlamini-Zuma.
He said that democracy didn’t exist in the ANC because Zuma had openly declared his support for a presidential candidate.
“You can’t do that. That’s going to cause divisions because those who disagree will be accused of hating the president.”
Mchunu also laid the blame for the recent increase in political killings in KwaZulu-Natal squarely at the ANC’s doorstep.
“Some of us believe the ANC needs to accept responsibility [for the killings]. When people are dying like flies, you cannot say the cause is elsewhere,” he said.
Referring to the Pietermaritzburg High Court judgment this week that nullified last year’s provincial executive committee meeting in KwaZulu-Natal, Mchunu accused KwaZulu-Natal ANC chair Sihle Zikalala of not respecting the court’s decision.
In 2015, Zikalala won his bid to become the party chair in the province, a position Mchunu was vying for.
Mchunu said: “Ordinarily, if you say the structure is invalid, we’ll know what it means to you, but, in our case, you say: ‘We’re here, we’re unlawful.’ But you want to be told by the national executive committee whether your existence is unlawful and void. Ordinarily, you’d dissolve and make an effort to level the playing field and unite comrades in KwaZulu-Natal.”
Mchunu said the party’s issues in KwaZulu-Natal began after the 2015 conference, when those who were elected into the ANC provincial leadership went on a rampage and removed officials, including mayors and councillors, who did not support them.
He also warned against complacency in the governing party, and criticised some leaders’ reactions to the resignation this week of Makhosi Khoza.
“Deputy Defence Minister Kebby Maphatsoe said, ‘good riddance’. But he forgets that he only has one vote. What do you say when we lose metros like Tshwane, Joburg and Nelson Mandela Bay to the DA; when people leave the ANC to form the Congress of the People and the Economic Freedom Fighters? Do you just say, ‘let them go’ because you strongly believe the ANC will never fall?
“The question that needs to be tackled is the belief among members and the leadership of the ANC that the ANC is a big organisation that will never fall – this is a false belief.”
Mchunu added that the ANC desperately needed to forge unity among its members.
“I believe Cyril Ramaphosa can unite the ANC,” he concluded.
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