A Wikileaks document released last week details how in 2009 local businessman and former ANC provincial chairman Chris Nissen told American consular staff that he had persuaded several high- profile ANC members – among them former premier Ebrahim Rasool and former MEC Marius Fransman – not to defect to Cope.
The document, dated May 2009, details a meeting with Nissen, who was spearheading the ANC’s election campaign in the province at the time, in which he discussed why the ANC lost the province.
The consular staff are not named, but the document appears to be addressed from them to the secretary of state in Washington DC.
“Nissen said that most of the ANC members in the Western Cape who defected to Cope had legitimate reasons for leaving the ANC, namely their dislike of (Mcebisi) Skwatsha and the damage he has done to the party in the Western Cape,” the document says.
“Nissen said the ANC has never been hit so hard by factionalism and that the ANC has gone down because of it. He also said the ANC lost most of its people to Cope in the Western Cape.”
The document says that among those Nissen personally approached and tried to persuade not to jump ship were the former cabinet minister and ANC national chairman Mosiuoa Lekota, Fransman and Rasool.
Skwatsha was the provincial secretary of the ANC.
Lekota left the party to set up Cope, while speculation was rife at the time that Rasool would too. Several of Rasool’s family members defected to Cope following his removal as premier of the province and he reportedly said: “The expectation to join Cope was appealing both to my anger and my vanity.”
Rasool is now ambassador to the US. Fransman, now the ANC’s provincial leader, yesterday said that his party’s position was that it did not comment on Wikileaks. “I can’t believe that Chris Nissen would have said that, and if it was said, it was a blatant lie,” he added.
It was not ANC policy to discuss internal party matters with foreign missions so he doubted that such a discussion would have taken place.
“We must stop listening to gossip and giving credence to information peddlers,” he said.
Attempts to reach Nissen last night were unsuccessful. - Weekend Argus