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 Mbeki won't be ousted, says ANC
    Boyd Webb
    May 12 2008 at 06:28AM
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President Thabo Mbeki is to stay in office despite another attempt to remove him this weekend by alliance partners.

On Sunday, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe was dismissive of calls to have Mbeki removed, arguing that the alliance summit had "not decided" on the motion that was put forward by the South African Communist Party (SACP) and others to have Mbeki removed from office.

"There is no such decision of the alliance," he said, stating that the media should not focus on issues that were raised during the summit but rather on the outcomes.

SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande was also dismissive of the discussions relating to Mbeki's possible axing as the country's president.
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'You win some, you lose some'
"It was raised only as an optional consideration by the SACP but it is not a matter that has been decided by the summit," he said.

It is understood that Tokyo Sexwale, businessman and ANC national executive committee member, also expressed concern about an unworkable transition in which Mbeki remained the country's president after losing the party's leadership to Jacob Zuma in Polokwane.

Former Limpopo premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi is said to have been blunt about urging the summit to deal with Mbeki for committing too many mistakes.

But Mantashe said the summit had opted not to lay blame at anybody's feet for the problems facing the country but rather to address them.

He said Mbeki would not be required to "take an instruction" from the alliance on how to resolve the problems but the alliance and government would meet to discuss solutions.

Two additional summits - a broad summit for all allies of the movement and later a governance summit involving only the alliance and government - are planned for later this year at which problems and possible solutions will be debated.

It believed that Mbeki's saving grace was the tight time constraints and the many other challenges faced by the ANC and the alliance partners - the SACP and Cosatu - as they gear up for next year's general election, which must take place before June.

However, the ANC, not leaving anything to chance, has got its way and deployed the party's deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, to Parliament, despite his apparent resistance to the move.

"You win some, you lose some," Motlanthe said on Sunday after being questioned on what he thought of losing his fight to stay at Luthuli House.

The ANC has noted that his move to Parliament last week had paved the way for Motlanthe to be placed in the Cabinet, where he is expected to learn the ropes and facilitate next year's hand-over of government.

The alliance summit on Sunday reiterated its full support for Zuma, despite the resumption of his fraud, racketeering, money laundering and corruption trial on August 14.

"We will not only be accompanying him to court but to the Union Buildings as the next president of South Africa," Mantashe said, reading the alliance declaration.

He said Zuma remained the ANC candidate for president and that "hypothetical situations" of him being charged or sentenced would not change that fact.

"I don't think it's a correct leadership approach to deal with hypothesis... when the alliance summit met, there was no case in court and we cannot do an analysis of that case in court," he said.

Meanwhile, the summit raised deep concern about the devastating impact of rising food prices.

Called for urgent action, the meeting suggested the removal of Value Added Tax (VAT) on a wide range of basic foods.

Mantashe suggested that the impact of such a move could be countered by increasing personal and corporate taxes, which impacted less on the poor.

"VAT impacts heavily on the poor. Personal tax and corporate tax impacts more on the working and the rich," he said.

The summit also called for the urgent intervention of the alliance, Parliament and the government to resolve the SABC board crisis.

"The current board is not sufficiently representative. The alliance is committed to an SABC that is truly a public broadcaster and whose board is representative of all sections of society," Mantashe said.

    • This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Times on May 12, 2008
Showing page 1 of 1 comment pages, 4 total comments
79 Weeks ago Anonymous wrote :
It is very disgusting and shameful of how we treat our leaders in this country. No matter how many much wrongs and mistakes our president has done but i realy think he still deserves to be respected until he steps down. You people are umilliating us, please don't turn our country into a circuise.ANC should just watch the way they address disagreements amongs themselves becouse remember that exposing your own brother's dirty linen to the public will never make you a Hero. Since you came to power, all we hear about ANC is one exposing a fellow ANC 's scandals at any given oppotunity. Our Leaders this country will do much better without such kind of behaviours. We already have enough to deal with at the moment like intrest rates, soaring food prices and petrol the long time song so called high rate of unemployement.Remember you have been elected to serve us and not yourselves. As much as ANC have mentioned that ANC has the power to elect its president and to remove one, we as people we have the powers to elect a ruling party and to remove a ruling party, don't forget that. And as for all the opposition parties, you must be ashamed of your selves, It seems like you will bring this country to the deepest fall, you behave like very selfish bunch of folks who are only looking for their own intrests, especially DA. Targeting each and every little mistake ANC is making and Capitalising on its mistake to top cream your own party and ordering every leader who did wrong to resign only shows that this country will be a diserster once you come to power. As for Zille, where where you during the apartheid era, when NP parties where opressing our fellow black south africans why didn't you order them to resign from their positions then. Our fellow people! wake up there were souls lost for our liberation, others were inprosened like Madiba, please lets not let all those Heros down. We have seen how our poeple were treated then and we have read about it. Please lets be wise. Lets stand toghether and unite so we dont stumble and fall. if someone made a mistake lets not destroy them but deal show them they were wrong without letting our enermies to lough at us.
79 Weeks ago Frank wrote :
Now of late since Polokwane Conference of the ANC we have learnt more of unity and cohesion. This has been the talk of the day for every leader of the ANC and its Alliance partners but in turn, we all experience sacking of Executive Mayors, Mayors and intentions to purge those who held a different view towards Polokwane. The recent Alliance Summit over the weekend has clearly indicated lack of confidence in President Mbeki's tenure of leadership, I would not be surprised to hear news that says Mbeki is recalled as the President of the country very soon. Remember there is no smoke without fire, it might have been a consideration at the summit but to me that is as possible as it has been a decision even before the summit.
79 Weeks ago YeboKt wrote :
Clearly Polokwane made the statement against Mbeki and the only reason he is still the President is the not so clear future of JZ and time constraints. Removing him now will leave the party with only two options, putting on a brave face and allowing Msholozi to take over or putting in caretaker likely Motlanthe. But none are suitable as JZ might still go to Jail and Motlanthe might become too popular within the six months making it hard to demote him later. So the best is keeping Thabo as our dummy president and telling him what to do including forcing him to disband the Scorpions and close the Arms deal investigations citing National Security and then take over when the spring cleaning is over.
79 Weeks ago Val wrote :
Clearly Mbeki will become irrelevant from January 2009 as the country enters election mode. So what difference will some six months make. Maybe the ANC does not want top oust him but can he not go quietly, let Motlanthe act as President until the elction and let this country be saved. Does a player put on free transfer achieve anything on the field?
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