Like Zimbabwe, SA needs leadership change - Mthembu

ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu says the ANC could learn from what was happening in Zimbabwe.

ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu says the ANC could learn from what was happening in Zimbabwe.

Published Nov 21, 2017

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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. 

Reuters

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