ANC president Jacob Zuma’s political obituary was written at the weekend when the national deputy president of the ANC Youth League, Ronald Lamola, told a gathering in Kimberley that Zuma’s term as the party’s president would end at the ANC’s elective conference next year.
Addressing a crowd of young people who attended the OR Tambo Memorial Lecture at Phatsimang College in Galeshewe on Saturday, Lamola said that they were backing the party’s deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, as Zuma’s replacement.
“Next year we will replace Zuma with Motlanthe as president and we will also replace the secretary-general (Gwede Mantashe) with Fikile Mbalula (the Minister of Sport).”
Reading out Zuma’s political obituary to a hall packed with members of the youth league, Lamola said that it was disingenuous for the ANC leadership to tell them not to open the succession debate while others in the party were allowed to talk about the issue.
“Members of the youth league in KwaZulu-Natal speak of Zuma for a second term and that is fine. Why is it acceptable to speak of the succession to support this man, but when you change the name in the debate, it is no longer acceptable?
“Why is it that people are allowed to talk of the succession at beer halls, yet you… members of the youth league… are not allowed to take part in the succession debate in your structures?” Lamola asked.
He said that it was ANC culture for the deputy president to take over from the president.
“Deputy president Nelson Mandela took over from OR Tambo in 1991 as president of the party. Thabo Mbeki took over from Mandela as president in 1999 and in 2007 Zuma took over from Mbeki as president. In 2012 Motlanthe will take over from Zuma as president,” Lamola said.
He also pointed out that it was unprecedented in the ANC to charge members of the youth league. He said Oliver Tambo was instrumental in the formation of the party’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, without any ANC resolution, yet he was not charged.
He also targeted the general secretary of the South African Communist Party, Blade Nzimande, who last week appealed to young people in the country not to join the league’s national march for economic freedom which will take place on Thursday and Friday.
“Nzimande has turned Chris Hani’s SACP into an Oxford Dictionary… a party that just does nothing but merely comes up with new words such as tenderpreneur. Chris (Hani) would be disappointed in Nzimande because he would have supported our march,” Lamola added. - Pretoria News