Mabe tells Mbeki, Zuma to keep opinions within ANC

ANC national spokesperson Pule Mabe has told former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma to keep their damning opinions about President Cyril Ramaphosa within party structures.

Speaking at Luthuli House on Tuesday, Mabe, who was addressing the media , was responding to comments made by the former presidents at the weekend at three different engagements where they criticised Ramaphosa over the rising cost of living, unemployment, Eskom and the alleged theft of millions of rand in undisclosed foreign currency at his Phala Phala farm.

“Where former leaders have views [that] relate to matters before law enforcement agencies, [such as] the Phala Phala matter, the sitting president of the ANC has already expressed his willingness to co-operate with law enforcement agencies. It’s only fair to allow those processes to arrive at their own logical conclusion,” he said.

“Former leaders of the ANC, president Mbeki and president Zuma get invited in an ex-officio capacity in line with decision of the ANC, sit in the national executive committee (NEC) and are encouraged to use that platform to raise whatever they may have about how the NEC carries its own work forward.

“We do not believe in public spats as the ANC and this NEC.”

After the remarks by the former presidents, KwaZulu-Natal was the first province to come out in Ramaphosa’s defense.

It  was followed by Limpopo and the North West province.

KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo, who directed his response to Zuma, said if they [the party] had to choose between him and the ANC, the province would choose the ANC.

In response to the different media statements that followed, Mabe urged provinces to rather take the lead from the NEC about national topics that concerned the ANC.

“It might be necessary for us to strengthen and coordinate communication being done by our provinces on matters that are out there that really affect the body of the ANC being the NEC. This is so that we don’t have our provinces react on matters that national [the NEC] would be best placed to handle.

“What’s happened now really requires [us] to strengthen coordination, and we’ve reached out to provincial secretary offices to make sure the message of the ANC on matters of national interest, including where it affects utterances of our former leaders, we coordinate our responses and are able to issue one consistent message,” Mabe said.

Mabe also confirmed the extension of the cut-off date for ANC branches to convene branch general meetings to nominate the top six for the December conference.

Sowetan earlier reported the deadline had been pushed back by a week to November 7.