Durban – The deputy secretary-general of the ANC, Jessie Duarte, has dismissed widespread allegations that former party president and state president, Jacob Zuma, is working behind the scenes to sow discord in the ruling party.
She says Zuma spends most of his time in KZN where he retired in 2018 and hardly leaves the province and, as such, there is no way he could hold meetings to cause divisions in the governing party.
Duarte was speaking during her guest appearance on SABC News’s Unfiltered show, which aired on Monday evening.
She also used the opportunity to say even perceived “foot soldiers” of Zuma like Carl Niehaus and some Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) members are not acting on Zuma’s instruction when appearing on public platforms and sometimes using his name.
The denial comes as some weekend media reports indicated that Zuma and Ace Magashule, the party’s secretary-general, were sowing discord in the party and there was ongoing intense lobbying to get them expelled.
Apparently, the calls are fuelled by the recent march by the MKMVA to the Zondo commission to call it out for being biased against Zuma and Magashule.
“When he [Zuma] does talk and on a few occasions I have heard, he talks about unity. So I don’t know where this comes from.
’’But again, I am ready to say it is completely wrong to comrades like Carl and others to give the perception that they are acting on behalf of comrade Zuma. And if we were to ask him very directly, did you send Carl and others, he would say no … because we have asked him.
’’The fact of the matter is that he is out there, mostly in KwaZulu-Natal, he hardly ever leaves the area where he lives. So I am not sure where this perception is driven from,” she said.
She added that Zuma does not influence the direction of the governing party either at a national or provincial (KZN) level.
“He doesn’t influence the direction that the national working committee (of the ANC) or the officials of the ANC take. So, where is this influence … is he influencing the KZN leadership? I doubt very much, because from where I see it, I don’t see that happening at all. I don’t see him sitting in meetings with the KZN leadership, and we would know.
’’So I think it’s a little bit unfair that there is this perception of him being an interfering old gentleman who is trying to steer the country in the wrong direction,” she said.
Duarte was also asked to comment about the #VoetsekANC hashtag which often trends on social media (mainly on Twitter) and is used to bash the governing party. She said while the “vicious hashtag” is hurtful, it is driven by “bots”.
“(It really) really hurts, I want to tell you, when we saw it, when I saw it, it was very hurtful, that I never thought that I would see that either.
’’And when we looked at where the Voetsek hashtag was coming from, a lot of it was bots and there were some genuine people in between, but the majority of it was bots,” Duarte claimed.
Political Bureau