/ 10 October 2008

‘Terror Lekota is a sore loser’

Terror Lekota is a sore loser who is attempting to create a breakaway party from the ANC because he cannot cope with losing his leadership position, said the ANC executive committee member and Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan this week.

”The manner in which all of this happened says to me these people are sore losers. Those voted out at Polokwane were not the first to be voted out of office in the ANC. You have to come back and fight another day and be re-elected or not.

”If you remember Duma Nokwe, who was the secretary general of the ANC when the party was banned, he was removed while the party was in exile. But he stayed, did his work and was later re-elected.”

In an interview with the Mail & Guardian Jordan said Lekota should have considered the history of breakaway movements from the ANC and would have seen they were and are not successful.

”The irony is that someone such as Terror should have looked carefully at people who have done that [walked away]. In 1958 Robert Sobukwe also served divorce papers on the ANC to start the PAC in 1959. Where is the PAC today?”

Jordan also quoted more recent examples such as United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa, who left the party to go it alone, but is currently not a force to be reckoned with in the political arena.

”We are not worried, nothing out of the ordinary has happened. Certain members are not happy with the outcome of the conference in Polokwane and for some of them the NEC decision to recall [former president] Thabo Mbeki was the last straw.”

He said everyone had the right to walk away if they so wished.

”You come to the ANC voluntarily on the basis of your conscience, so you have the right to walk away if you feel you are no longer in sync with the ANC’s fundamental principles.”

Jordan sees Lekota’s complaint as the same issues raised by everyone else who left the ANC before to start their own parties.

”Their chief complaint is always that the ANC has departed from its principles. It is the same rhetoric and they always end up as political nonentities.”

Jordan took a swipe at Lekota’s ally, former deputy defence minister Mluleki George.

”And his principal henchman, for Christ’s sake! George ran a campaign to become ANC chair in the Eastern Cape and he was defeated. What is there to recommend him? Until the last day at Polokwane he said that Mbeki would win.”

George was one of the key Mbeki lobbyists in his failed campaign to win a third term as ANC president.

Lekota’s claims that his views were suppressed in the party are untrue, said Jordan.

”I see no evidence of that. How has the ANC suppressed his views? Has he been denied access to ANC journals? Has he been thrown out of a branch meeting?”

The complaint made by Lekota that the ANC has been usurped by the likes of firebrand ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema is also unfounded, Jordan said.

”There are lots of nuts in the ANC that have loud voices and their statements are being elevated by the media as those of the ANC. There have always been mavericks such as Fikile Mbalula and Peter Mokaba who shoot their mouths off.”

Jordan backed Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya that Malema’s views are not representative of ANC views. ”This is a kid who is almost a born-free, if you look at his age. He is not a senior member of the ANC at all. He serves on structures [like the national working committee and the national executive committee] because the youth league has ex officio status on these bodies. His statements are sometimes said with youthful enthusiasm, sometimes ill-advised, you must look at it for what it is. He might well be advised otherwise [to not make these statements] but have you ever thought that he might not listen?”

Jordan makes it clear that the ANC does not subscribe to the notion that there should be a ”political solution” for ANC president Jacob Zuma’s legal woes.

”Many people in the party might want it and have said so publicly, but that is not the position of the party.”

He is convinced the new formation will not pose a threat to the ANC at the polls.

”The ANC has better programmes and is a better party, so we don’t have to be concerned.”