Johannesburg - Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula has dismissed his one-time confidant, President Jacob Zuma’s former spokesman Zizi Kodwa, and businessman Sello Rasethaba as “self-styled messiahs” and “revolutionaries”.
Mbalula, who has been punted to replace ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe in Mangaung on an anti-Zuma slate, accused unnamed “political thugs” of spreading rumours that he had ditched Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe’s ANC faction in favour of Zuma’s.
But ANC sources said he just feared being seen as a political maverick.
Reacting on Sunday to a report in The Sunday Independent, an angry Mbalula said desperate political thugs and their cohorts had leaked his “routine” meeting with Zuma at Luthuli House ANC headquarters last week in order to assassinate his character.
Kodwa and Rasethaba, who is close to former ANC Youth League (ANCYL) president Julius Malema, were quoted in the report as urging Mbalula to switch allegiance and work with Zuma rather than be part of a “coalition that cannot be defined politically”. This was apparently because he had been rejected by the majority of ANC provinces – with only Limpopo and the ANCYL nominating him for the secretary-general position.
But in a strongly worded statement on Sunday, Mbalula said this was part of a dirty tricks campaign ahead of the ANC’s December elective conference in Mangaung.
He said: “I am equally aware that those who possess uncontrollable ambitions to ascend to leadership by hook or by crook or position themselves as king-makers, will not hesitate to play dirty tricks.
“These include leaking of my routine meetings with the president and speculating on the contents of those meetings. I neither need spokespersons nor self-styled messiahs in the form of Zizi Kodwa or Sello Rasethaba to speak on my behalf or mete out unsolicited and unwanted counsel. I am equally not [at] the mercy of self-styled revolutionaries of no consequence devoid of principle.”
But Rasethaba insisted on Sunday that he stood by his words, saying they had no malicious intent and that he respected Mbalula as a comrade and friend.
Kodwa could not be reached for comment.
The Star