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THE SMART NEWS SOURCE | Feb 09 2012 04:18 | LAST UPDATED Feb 09 2012 04:18 |
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President Jacob Zuma on Friday expressed concern about relations within the ruling alliance and about the conduct of individual national executive committee members. "There is a concern of how we are behaving toward one another, but how are we also behaving as leaders of the ANC, ourselves," ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said. The ANC's national executive committee began a scheduled two-day meeting at Esselen Park, in Ekurhuleni, on Friday. "How are we behaving toward alliance members but toward the general populace of South Africa?" was among the issues discussed on Friday, said Mthembu, who was spent Thursday morning behind bars after being arrested for drunken driving in Cape Town. "So there is that concern from the side of the president," he said. The ANC has had a tumultuous week. Zuma, who is the ANC's president, came under fire for not timeously declaring his financial assets, while a storm erupted over comments made in what senior NEC member Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has described as a fabricated interview carried by the London Evening Standard. Apart from Mthembu's arrest, ANC spokesperson Brian Sokutu was suspended for apparently not following protocol in commenting to the media. Clashing with Cosatu Last week, the ANC and its alliance partner, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, publicly lashed out at each other. Asked how Zuma had characterised the alliance tensions in his political overview to the NEC, Mthembu said: "He's not happy about the state of the relationship between us and the alliance partners, but its something that all of us need to work on.  CONTINUES BELOW "All of us need to do more to strengthen the relations between the ANC, Cosatu, and [the SA Communist Party]." The public fall-out between the ANC and Cosatu followed a January NEC lekgotla [meeting] at which the party's secretary general Gwede Mantashe said the NEC would urgently "initiate a broad discussion on the history, law and current tasks of the alliance". "We must manage the contradictions inherent to the alliance in a manner that builds the unity of purpose, understanding of distinct roles and programmes of each component," he said. At the time, he called on alliance members to "respect each other's organisational integrity, enforce discipline, avoid public spats and labelling and resolve problems within bilateral and other alliance forums". NEC received a report on a bilateral meeting with the SACP in Cape Town on Thursday. Mthembu said the party's leadership was "happy" with this. The talks had sought to get to the bottom of an incident at a SACP congress in December where senior ANC leaders were booed. Mantashe was expected to present a report to the NEC on Saturday. This would deal mainly with the party's preparations for its general council in September. The NEC would receive a report-back from the party's powerful national working committee on its work. The meeting was set to conclude on Saturday. A media briefing would be held on Sunday. Zuma and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, who is also deputy president of the ANC, sat before the ANC's top brass clad in Bafana Bafana T-shirts. The media was allowed in for photographs and video footage. Earlier, ANC Youth League president Julius Malema stood outside deep in conversation with NEC member and Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale. Malema then invited people ogling him from afar to come closer. They responded enthusiastically, taking pictures of him. - Sapa TOPICS IN THIS ARTICLE
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 Tumultuous week for the ruling partyPresident Jacob Zuma -- pictured here while being interviewed by the M&G in Cape Town this week -- has expressed concern about relations within the ruling alliance at the ANC's national executive committee meeting. (David Harrison, M&G) Client Media Releases
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