Johannesburg - ANC veteran Frank Chikane can walk into Luthuli House and express himself whenever he wants to.
This was the terse response by ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe on Thursday to Chikane’s public release of a document he wrote to the party last year warning it of its impending demise.
Mantashe, who said he did not want to talk to Chikane via the media, was speaking ahead of the party’s crucial four-day special national executive committee meeting at St George’s Hotel in Irene, Tshwane, on Thursday.
The meeting will deal with the aftermath of the ANC’s poor performance in the local government elections, especially in the Gauteng metros and Nelson Mandela Bay Metro in Port Elizabeth.
Chikane is not the only prominent former ANC leader to speak out this week about having warned the ANC prior to the elections about the possibility of voters turning against it.
In a series of social media posts, former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi suggested he had also hinted of the current state of affairs during his time as a leader in the tripartite alliance.
Chikane released the document titled “The soul of the ANC under attack”, which he had sent to Luthuli House in September, warning of the party possibly losing some of the metros and major cities.
“For the ANC to remain a winning ANC, it must keep the tradition of being self-critical. Failure to do so will result in its demise and its losing confidence and its position as leader of society,” Chikane wrote.
“I would like to submit that there are enough signals today that suggest we are heading in that direction (the beginning of the end).”
Chikane also wrote that a downward turn and loss of confidence would, if not curbed, evolve into a freefall in which the ANC would eventually be defeated in a national election.
He said it was clear the greatest threat to the soul of the ANC was from its own members and leaders, who were being corrupted and transformed into self-serving agents.
Chikane said this was like cancer that slowly makes its way into the very soul of the organisation, threatening its critical organs and thus its very being, life and existence.
“I never believed you could corrupt an ANC member, because we fought the system, there was lots of money to buy us away. There were lots of people who had bags of money to buy you and get you out of the Struggle,” he wrote.
“So what has happened is that even the cadres of the movement you thought wouldn’t become corruptible, once in power become corruptible.”
In November, Mantashe wrote a stinging opinion piece to a business newspaper taking issue with former leaders who criticise the ANC. He wrote then that the former leaders “want to warm their tea by seeking celebrity through criticism of those in office”.
The Star