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Anti-apartheid heroes slam Zuma as ANC elects new chief
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 15, 2017 (BSS/AFP) – The African National Congress was
lauded for its moral authority in the fight against apartheid in South
Africa, but many veterans of that era are deeply disillusioned by the party’s
actions today.
As delegates prepare to elect a new leader to succeed Jacob Zuma, the ANC
faces falling public support, a reputation for corruption and the threat of a
damaging split between rival factions.
The celebrated activists who stood alongside ANC leader Nelson Mandela in
the struggle against white-minority rule say the party bears little semblance
to its storied glory days, given its current reputation for putting personal
interests above national needs.
“I am not proud of being an ANC member that is led by this lot. I am proud
of the history of the ANC,” Frank Chikane, a prominent figure in the anti-
apartheid fight, told AFP.
Chikane, a priest who grew up in Soweto, led protests through the 1970s and
1980s, and was regularly detained by the state — as well as being targeted
in an assassination attempt when police poisoned his clothes.
“What is happening out there now is not the ANC,” he said. “In the past we
thought the enemy was outside, now the enemy is inside.”
He urged party members to “stop the rot” when they gather to elect a leader
and other senior officials at a five-day conference starting Saturday. – The
Zuma legacy –
Much of the criticism of the current ANC focuses on Zuma, who is seen as
backing his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to succeed him as party chief.
Her main rival is deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, with the vote result
expected on Sunday or early next week.
Zuma, who has ruled South Africa since 2009, will remain as the country’s
president ahead of the 2019 general election.
He has been engulfed by multiple graft scandals, including being found
guilty in 2016 of violating the constitution after he resisted paying back
public money used to lavishly upgrade his private residence.
The ANC has consistently shrugged off calls to act against Zuma and its
lawmakers have voted down several motions of no confidence against him.
“The leadership of the last decade has ridden roughshod over the ANC
constitution,” Trevor Manuel, another ANC stalwart, said in a stinging speech
last month.
“We need an ANC that will recognise that it has lost its way,” added
Manuel, who campaigned against apartheid governments before becoming
Mandela’s respected finance minister.
“Right now, it appears too self-serving to be interested in the future of
South Africa and the needs of its people,” he said.
Some analysts say the party risks a formal split between the Zuma and anti-
Zuma camps before the 2019 election.
In local polls last year, its vote fell to 54 percent, its lowest ever,
while it lost control of three key cities to the opposition Democratic
Alliance, including the capital Pretoria and Johannesburg.
– Stalwarts speak out –
In 2016, some veterans — including Denis Goldberg, one of Mandela’s
closest allies dating back to the 1960s — founded the “For the sake of our
future” group to try to influence their party.
In an open letter ahead of the conference it said the “leadership of the
ANC is paralysed and unable to deal with ill-discipline, incompetence and
corruption that point directly to the highest office in the land”.
Zuma himself is a so-called “stalwart” — he was imprisoned with Mandela on
Robben Island for 10 years.
But Sipho Pityana, a former activist who became a wealthy mining
businessman, told AFP it was a “disgrace” that the ANC had failed to remove
the president from power.
“The image of Zuma has become the image of the ANC,” Pityana said.
“The ANC needs to accept that it is morally bankrupt and corrupt to the
core, and reversing the damage is going to take years.”
Dlamini-Zuma’s critics say she would be a proxy for her husband and would
protect him from prosecution over graft charges, as well as deepen the
corruption that has marred his rule.
The great anti-apartheid hero archbishop Desmond Tutu was never a member of
the ANC — but in 2011 he launched an emotional attack on the party which
helped to end white-minority rule.
“Our government is worse than the apartheid government because at least you
would expect it with the apartheid government,” he said. “You, President Zuma
and your government, do not represent me. I am warning you… one day we will
pray for the defeat of the ANC.”
BSS/AFP/RY/08:15 hrs