READER LETTER | Zuma soiling OR Tambo’s legacy

Over the weekend, former president Jacob Zuma delivered the OR Tambo Memorial Lecture which was televised over various media platforms. As such, one was expecting that Zuma would deliver the lecture in such a manner that would reflect what Tambo stood for. However, there was nothing OR Tambo in that lecture.

Instead, he focused on decampaigning the current president, which is against the national conference guidelines. Nobody seems to care because we are in conference fever. Zuma attacked the sitting president with cheers from his supporters, but he failed to mention some things.

He failed to acknowledge that some of the problems, if not most that he raised, emerged during his tenure. The buying of votes and bogus branches going to conference are part of his legacy. He failed to deal with these issues while he was still at the helm of the ANC.

He cited that branches in Mpumalanga and Eastern Cape that elected President Cyril Ramaphosa were not supposed to be in that congress and yet the very same congress was organised by him and his collective. Why not deal with those issues in time?

The ANC always promotes free and fair contestation while promoting that those who do not emerge must support the elected leadership. In this, he failed dismally. Instead, he and his supporters spent five years attacking and denting the image of the organisation through the president.

What he did on Sunday was very shameful and should not be taken serious. We know he did that to influence delegates across the country not to vote for Ramaphosa. He had no shame in telling us that he would be asking questions, which he should have asked in the NEC meetings but was scared because he would be dealt with.

Zuma must give others a chance to lead. He got his chance but chose to do things through his Gupta friends and now the country is in a crisis because of him.

Tom Mhlanga, Braamfontein