Vytjie Mentor rips into ‘Russia-connected’ Dlamini-Zuma

Former ANC MP and ANC whistleblower Vytjie Mentor took to Facebook on Friday and Saturday to criticise presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (NDZ).

Dlamini-Zuma had earlier, among many other things, claimed that former Model C schools in South Africa have allegedly been teaching children to “hate” the ANC.

Mentor was also unimpressed with news that the former head of the African Union Commission continues to enjoy state-sponsored VIP security protection despite not holding any official portfolio in government.

“Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has gone ballastically [sic] crazy,” wrote Mentor. “Zuma has infected her! How can she say Model-C Schools teach children to hate the ANC? Her billionaire kids went to those schools, do they hate the ANC?”

She called “NDZ” a “careless and reckless speaker” and “we now know that she loves power absolutely and that she loves all its trappings like being protected by the PPU Unit. We also know that she does not think before she opens her mouth. Being a leader from exile and being in the Executive had cushioned her all along. We know her better now, and she might be wearing a dress, but she will ascend to the Presidency of the Republic over our dead bodies!”

The ANC Women’s League and others in the ANC, including President Jacob Zuma, have called openly for a female president, clearly meaning Dlamini-Zuma.

Mentor wrote: “I also need and want Police VIP Protection.”

She asked whether Dlamini-Zuma got “her medical degree in the USSR? She seems to be the perfect Russian connection!”

Mentor appears to have made this connection in order to link Dlamini-Zuma to a controversial nuclear deal with Russia, which Mentor continues to claim has already been signed by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba.

Dlamini-Zuma, however, actually received her medical qualifications at the University of Bristol in the UK in 1978. She worked as a doctor at the Mbabane Government Hospital in Swaziland, where she met her then future ex-husband, Jacob Zuma. She completed a diploma in tropical child health at Liverpool University’s School of Tropical Medicine in 1985.

Mentor wrote that it was “sad” to her that the “illustrious” Dlamini-Zuma had been “corrupted” by her former husband.

“It is sad for a woman to have lived an illustrous life in her early years, only to get badly corrupted around age 70. Poor Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. The biggest mistake of her whole life was to marry dirty Zuma and to bear kids for him. Now she is deeply enmeshed and embroiled in the Zuma-empire dirt. She has baited all the bad tactics and strategies hook-line-and-sinker, and she sounds to have become very irrational these days.

“It’s dangerous to have presidential ambitions like she does, as this has made her to become prepared to do and say anything that promises to deliver the presidency to her. History will rewrite her life story as one that began very well, only to end very disastrously. I really feel very sorry for her, poor soul!”

Dlamini-Zuma, in a long and informal talk at the Cadres’ Forum in Sasolburg, Free State, on Thursday, had said the ANC was not properly in control of the economy yet and admitted that the party was “losing the battle of ideas”.

She estimated that the ANC only had 20% of the power available in South Africa, because the economy was the other 80%, and this was not being controlled by the ANC.

Dlamini-Zuma said that the ANC had done a lot of good since 1994, which needed to be acknowledged, but “we have not done enough on the economy”.

She said “radical economic transformation” would be required and black people would need to ascend to the commanding heights of the economy.

She called for unity in the ANC and obliquely referenced the protests against President Jacob Zuma, saying that these protests were being led by “former oppressors”, meaning that the ANC’s current leadership needed to be rallied around and supported.

Dlamini-Zuma also expressed support for new finance minister Malusi Gigaba. It was necessary to create changes in the finance ministry and the financial sector as a whole, she charged, which could only come through radical steps.

She had earlier criticised the DA for thinking it could run the country “through the streets and the courts”. But the only way it could take over would be through winning the vote, which she advised would be difficult against “this glorious movement of Oliver Tambo”.

After saying South African schools were teaching pupils to oppose the ANC, she also accused universities of teaching students that South Africa was not a democracy, but a one-party state.

“They are taught it will only be a democracy when the opposition takes over,” she said, to exclamations of shock from her audience.

Last week, Dlamini-Zuma received scorn for labelling protest marches against Jacob Zuma as “rubbish”. Her verified Twitter account posted “This is what they are protecting… hence some of us are not part of this rubbish. They must join us for the march for our land they stole…” and deleted the tweet shortly thereafter. Dlamini-Zuma referred to the missive as a “fake tweet” afterwards.