If the calls of solidarity and support are anything to go by, ousted Cabinet minister Pallo Jordan’s political career is far from over. Gaye Davis reports
OUSTED Cabinet minister Pallo Jordan cleared his desk this week and formally handed over to Jay Naidoo, his successor as minister of posts and telecommunications.
Jordan was due to meet President Nelson Mandela on Friday to discuss his future.
Jordan was this week flooded with calls of solidarity and support — including e-mail messages — in response to his axing. He indicated last week that he would be happy to continue his political career as a backbencher.
The Mail & Guardian reported last week that Jordan was fired from the Cabinet as a result of differences with Mandela and other senior African National Congress leaders, including a stand he took against the dilution of civil liberties to help police combat crime and against government interference in the broadcasting services.
In reaction, the ANC issued a statement saying that to attribute to Mandela a desire to interfere in the SABC’s independence was a “shocking insult”.
It presumed him “ignorant of fundamental ANC policy, the Constitution and various legislation on this matter. Further, it ignores statements that the president himself has made on the independence of the public broadcaster.”
While the ANC acknowledged the right of this reporter and the M&G’s editor to speculate on Mandela’s decision to deploy Jordan outside the Cabinet, it was critical to set the record straight.
The suggestions that there were senior ANC members who wanted to dilute civil liberties, that the ANC was dissatisfied with Jordan’s approach to Telkom and that he had differences with the government on the Growth and Development Strategy were all “off the mark” and failed to appreciate the “broad consensus” in the government on these issues, which had been “thrashed out either in ANC constitutional structures and/or within the government”.
In these discussions, various views were expressed, “until a decision is reached through normal democratic procedures”.
It was therefore “an insult to the president, to the ANC and to Dr Jordan to construct a picture of a docile organisation, under the spell of the president, with a hapless Pallo Jordan standing up to him”.
The ANC Youth League said “to suggest that (Mandela) may have had an ulterior motive when he reassigned former minister Pallo Jordan is to slight his integrity.
“The doubts cast on the ability of the president to exercise his authority seem to be a materialisation of a fear among opponents of democracy that natives will always have difficulty exercising power in a normal democracy.
“We are deeply concerned,” the league added, “about the malicious campaign against Deputy President Thabo Mbeki which suggest that he may be behind the removal of Jordan.”