Jacob Zuma was mum on Thursday on whether he would attend the weekend meeting of the national executive committee (NEC) of the African National Congress (ANC).
Speaking from his home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, a jovial Zuma said: ”I am not answering that question.”
The ANC deputy president said he did not want the media to ”be speculating” on his attendance at the meeting.
The three-day NEC meeting in Esselen Park on Gauteng’s East Rand will start on Friday amid questions about a perceived rift between Zuma and President Thabo Mbeki.
ANC deputy secretary general Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele earlier in the day defended Mbeki’s silence on the matter.
Speaking on SAfm’s After Eight Debate, she also rejected assertions from callers that Mbeki had become like an ”absent father”.
City Press editor Mathatha Tsedu, a guest on the show, said Mbeki should comment on the rift between him and Zuma. Mbeki should at least explain his silence on the matter, said Tsedu.
In a statement on the NEC meeting, the ANC said Mbeki was scheduled to give the party leadership a political overview at the gathering.
The NEC would also examine the party’s strategy and tactics.
Another issue to come under the spotlight would be the Civil Unions Bill — drawn up in a bid to meet the Constitutional Court’s December 1 deadline for a law on homosexual marriages.
On Heritage Day, Zuma made an anti-gay statement seen as being in conflict with party policy — a remark he has since apologised for.
The NEC would also examine a strategy and tactics framework document presented to the National Working Committee (NWC) earlier in the week.
The weekend’s meeting comes in the aftermath the Pietermaritzburg High Court throwing a corruption case against Zuma out of court last month.
Earlier this week, NEC member Ngoako Ramatlhodi apologised for publicly claiming that Mbeki’s ”autocratic behaviour” was dividing the party.
The ANC’s partners in the tripartite alliance, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party, have recently expressed major ideological differences to the ANC’s market economy approach.
An ANC official was unable to say if or when the outcome of the NEC meeting would be made public. — Sapa