Johannesburg - Former President, Thabo Mbeki received an unexpected birthday gift on Thursday in the form of an unsolicited apology.
Expelled Cosatu general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi said “he was sorry” for believing and championing a stance that Mbeki and his allies had conspired in an “imperialist agenda” to dismiss President Jacob Zuma from office in the winter of 2005.
“I have to apologise on naively believing that conspiracy theory and I would want to apologise to Thabo Mbeki today on his birthday that I really believed that this was all made up by him,” said Vavi during a radio interview on Thursday morning.
Vavi was one of the key politicians who campaigned for Zuma’s rise to power, protesting outsides courts and calling on workers to reject Mbeki in his favour.
“I threw myself, my body my emotions and soul behind the Deputy President then (Zuma) saying that the entire 700 charges are being made up by Thabo Mbeki and his click… I believed this. And10 years down the line I do not believe that anymore,” explained Vavi.
He also accredited his hatred for policies engineered by the Mbeki administration as being the reason his judgement was clouded.
The former Cosatu leader who now works with civil society organisations and Metalworkers Union’s (Numsa) United Front to promote several causes also extended the olive branch to former Cosatu president, Willie Madisha who was also unceremoniously removed from his post on Vavi’s watch.
While still hurting from what he described as “malicious” remarks made by Madisha at the time about him having misappropriated funds by taking a girlfriend to a World Cup tournament, he apologised nonetheless.
According to Vavi, the wrath unleashed on Madisha by him and others in the Cosatu central executive committee when he was expelled was invoked by their hatred of his close relationship with Mbeki.
Labour Bureau