Carl Niehaus wants Ramaphosa removed after ANC’s loss of support in elections

It’s been just over a month since the spokesperson of the disbanded uMkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans’ Association (MKMVA), Carl Niehaus, had his membership reinstated, and now that elections are over he has decided to throw his weight behind a campaign to get Cyril Ramaphosa removed as ANC president.

Niehaus joined the ANC’s campaign trail after having his membership reinstated at the end of September, following his suspension for defying the ANC national executive committee’s (NEC’s) decision to disband the MKMVA.

Shortly after this he was accused of bringing the party into disrepute when he addressed a crowd outside Nkandla before former president Jacob Zuma was incarcerated, ultimately leading to a wave of looting and chaos in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

But now, it looks like his short stint of singing the party’s praises on the campaign trail has come to an end, and he is back to wanting to see the back of Ramaphosa.

Also Read: Niehaus slams ‘silly tit-for-tat politics’ after ANC slaps him with disciplinary charges

He made this very clear in a series of tweets, promoting the hashtag #RamaphosaMustGo.

Niehaus argued that Ramaphosa being made the face of the ANC’s campaigns across municipalities meant the vote became a referendum on the president – a referendum he believes ended in a “resounding vote of no confidence” in the president.

He followed this with a video in which a man accuses Ramaphosa of trying to kill the ANC.

Shortly before the elections, Niehaus had also laid criminal charges against the ANC for fraud, theft and corruption related to supposed violations of pay-as-you-earn regulations, Unemployment Insurance Fund rules, the Pension Fund Act and the Tax Administration Act.

This all related to the ANC’s failure to pay salaries to ANC staffers, and transferring money deducted from salaries to SARS, and the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

Niehaus had been fired from the ANC shortly before this.

Throughout all the drama, he had insisted that he loved the ANC, but that the party’s current top leaders had failed the party and he called for their removal.

“They mismanaged the finances of the ANC, messed up the politics of the ANC, abused the legal system [and] used the law for factional political purposes. That leadership must go.”

Remarkably, Niehaus’ charges did not include suspended party secretary general Ace Magashule, under whose watch the supposed crimes occurred.

Niehaus and Magashule are known allies, and are both aligned to Jacob Zuma.