ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe says the party will not “throw mud” at former president Thabo Mbeki for the latter’s comments that MPs must put the people first when voting after the debate on a motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma.
Yesterday, Mbeki called on ANC MPs to vote in the interests of the people and not toe the party line when the National Assembly debates a motion of no confidence in Zuma next week.
When asked what the ruling party’s reaction to Mbeki’s call was, Mantashe said: “You are asking us to throw mud at Thabo Mbeki’s house, we are not going to do that.”
ANC spokesperson Khusela Sangoni said the party had chosen not to comment. “We would not want to engage (former) president Mbeki on that matter,” he said.
However, the ANC Youth League in KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma’s heartland, yesterday fired a broadside at Mbeki, accusing him of being a “hypocrite” for his comments.
Youth league provincial secretary Thanduxolo Sabelo said Mbeki was “a bitter old man” bent on influencing ANC MPs to be disloyal to the governing party.
This, according to Sabelo, was despite Mbeki having complied when the ANC recalled him eight months before the 2009 elections.
Sabelo is a Zuma loyalist and one of the lead campaigners for former AU chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma to replace Zuma.
“We believe he is very bitter and very angry after he was defeated in Polokwane in 2007 and then removed from office as the president of the country. He is a bitter old man.”
Sabelo made the comments after an article by Mbeki was published in The Star, the Cape Times’ sister paper,
yesterday.
In the article, Mbeki said MPs should act as the voice of the people “not the voice of the political parties to which they belong”.
Mbeki was recalled after he was ousted by Zuma at the ANC’s national conference in Polokwane in 2007.
The ANC Youth League in KwaZulu-Natal was blamed for the chaos that erupted at a memorial service for ANC stalwart Ahmed Kathrada on Sunday.
Youth league members booed and heckled ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize and former finance minister Pravin Gordhan, while the two addressed the gathering.
ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu could not be reached for comment yesterday.
But Mthembu told eNCA that the ANC would not deviate from the party mandate to oppose the motion of no confidence in Zuma.
The Thabo Mbeki Foundation said Sabelo’s comments were a diversion on the purpose of the former president’s article. “It seeks to divert us from the issues,” the foundation’s communications manager Thami Ntenteni said.
"The essence of the article is about the obligation of parliamentarians. It specifically mentions that not only ANC parliamentarians, but all MPs are in service of the people of South Africa.”
Ntenteni said Mbeki had even quoted from a judgment of Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng regarding security upgrades in Nkandla, where “he explicitly states MPs are in service of the people of South Africa”.