Johannesburg - The ANC should get President Jacob Zuma
to stand down as head of state after a party conference next
month because like Zimbabwe the country urgently needs a change
of leader, ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu has said.
The ANC has been dogged by infighting for much of this year
as a series of corruption scandals have tarnished its image
ahead of the December conference at which it will elect Zuma's
successor.
The party is split between factions backing former minister and African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma and Deputy
President Cyril Ramaphosa for the ANC's top job.
Mthembu told Reuters that whoever the
party chooses next month, the incoming leadership should tell
Zuma to go to allow the ANC to clean up its act.
"You can't keep him there," he said.
Mthembu said the ANC could learn from what was happening in
Zimbabwe, where the ruling ZANU-PF party is pushing for
President Robert Mugabe to leave his post.
"In Zimbabwe they call that bloodless corrections ... We
need to make the corrections immediately after the conference.
How do you effect those corrections in government when the same
person who might have contributed to a better degree still
sits?" Mthembu asked.
Mthembu is in the camp that backs Ramaphosa for ANC
president and said it was important for the ANC to regain the
trust of South African people after news reports that the Gupta
brothers, business friends close to Zuma, had influenced
government appointments and secured contracts from state firms.
Both Zuma and the Guptas deny any wrongdoing.
Zuma's second term as president expires in 2019, but he
could be forced out as head of state by the ANC's new leadership
before his term ends, as was the case with former president
Thabo Mbeki.
In May the ANC said its executive committee backed Zuma
after calls for him to resign, and in August Zuma survived a
no-confidence motion in parliament.
Zuma still has strong support in the party, including from
the influential women's and youth leagues as well as in rural
areas, where several tribal chiefs back the traditionalist
leader.
The ANC has seen its electoral majority shrink over recent
years, and some analysts predict it could lose the 2019
election. Until recently that was unthinkable for a party that
has led comfortably since sweeping to power under Nelson Mandela
at the end of apartheid in 1994.
Mthembu said if the ANC failed to emerge from its December
conference with a new image it was "doomed".
"It's us who got South Africa into this mess by electing
Zuma to be president. We should have looked closely into the
man. With hindsight we made a terrible error of judgment," he
said.