Mbeki slams ANC leaders campaigning for leadership positions, instead of dealing with SA’s challenges

With the ANC set to elect new leadership later this year in December, former president Thabo Mbeki has slated party leaders who are preoccupied with campaigning for leadership positions, instead of dealing with South Africa’s pressing socio-economic challenges.

Mbeki on Saturday said that he was concerned some ANC leaders were focused on the governing party’s internal succession debate and squabbles, rather than “serving the ordinary masses of the people”.

“Even at the January 8th [ANC] rally in Limpopo, somebody stands up in a meeting and says ‘long live, second term for Cyril Ramaphosa’. What is that?

“South Africa cannot solve its problems without the active involvement and conscience involvement of the ANC because of its size. And so the ANC owes it to the nation to behave itself,” Mbeki said.

Mbeki in the Free State

The former ANC president made the remarks in Bloemfontein during a meeting with ANC members in the Free State.

Mbeki on Saturday wrapped up his three-day trip to the province. He was in the Free State to foster unity and renewal in the party’s structures after being invited by the ANC interim provincial committee.

Mbeki said South Africans who are faced with the reality of soaring joblessness and social inequality, were not concerned with the ANC’s internal succession debate, but their living conditions.

“The ordinary masses of the people are not interested who’s the president of the ANC. But they are interested in an ANC which takes care of the matter of service delivery, takes care of that road in Mangaung, which is a road of potholes,” he said.

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With the ANC’s elective conference ten months away, the former president questioned why some leaders were campaigning for positions early in the year, when the ANC has not formally opened its succession debate.

“We can’t have a leadership of the ANC which allows itself to be misled.

“We are in February, why should people be campaigning for positions in February, instead of attending to the matters that are important for our nation?”

Factional infighting

Earlier, Mbeki elaborated on some of the challenges he encountered during his trip to the province.

He said long-standing issues of factional infighting were at the forefront of the challenges facing the ANC in the Free State, but this was not unique to the province.

“For us, it’s a bit of a voyage of discovery to be exposed to the challenges that face the ANC in the province. I’m saying [this] because we don’t stay here and are not daily engaged with the province.

“And therefore, to hear from everybody is for us very very important to understand the reality of the province, so that we’re then better able, if we’re asked to give any advice, that advice is based on the concrete reality in the province,” he said.

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