ANC: 'Operation Come Back Home' is a joke

The African National Congress (ANC) on Wednesday dismissed reports that it was trying to lure prominent Congress of the People (Cope) members back with exorbitant salaries and cars.

“It sounds like an April fools’ joke,” said ANC spokesperson Jessie Duarte.

She was responding to a news report of a so-called “Operation Come Back Home” on 702 Talk Radio early on Wednesday morning.

“The NEC has [only] said that any person who wants to come back to the ANC is welcome to come home to the ANC, but will [have to] apply for membership through a branch as the ANC constitution requires,” she said.

However, 702 news insisted the story, which also featured interviews with some unidentified Cope members, was genuine.

Cope alleged in a statement that the ANC had “inundated” its key members with offers of jobs and promises of cars and money.

The party said the “secret operation”, the brainchild of ANC NEC member Jeff Radebe, was a desperate attempt by a “panic stricken” ANC.

It was, however, encouraged by the “overwhelming rejection” of these advances by its members.

“The launch of the latest campaign follows the failure of the ANC’s strategy of parading scores of their own members and claiming they were
defectors from Cope,” the statement read.

It also described the move as another “underhanded and morally bankrupt election tactic” by the ANC.

“We will not succumb to these sleazy tactics.

This is one of the products of the ANC’s war room to rubbish the Cope campaign.”—Sapa