Johannesburg - Members of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) as a whole went into their meeting on Friday night wounded following a decision by Cosatu to bar President Jacob Zuma from attending and addressing its gatherings, according to an analyst.
Political analyst Dr Dumisani Hlophe characterised Zuma as an endorsement of the NEC, the highest decision making structure in between conferences. He said it was “more damning” for the NEC to be seen to be endorsing a president who had fallen out of favour with the ANC’s key alliance partners, Cosatu and the SACP.
“The NEC as a whole goes into this event wounded because it means that as the leadership of the alliance, it’s not recognised by its alliance partners through the president. If you have a president of the alliance who is told by the biggest labour federation in the country that you can’t speak at our events, now that is bad. You can’t rule out the SACP following suit,” said Hlophe.
Cosatu took the decision to bar Zuma from its events after he was humiliated, heckled and prevented from addressing a May Day rally in Bloemfontein.
On Thursday ANC stalwarts, who have warned the party is dying, wrote a letter to the NEC in a last-ditch attempt to convince the party’s structure to recall Zuma. ANC veteran Murphy Morobe told Independent Media their open letter gave a full account of the six months they had been involved in the process to save the ANC.
However, Zuma’s backers in the NEC said they were ready to defend him from any attempts to remove him from power during the meeting.