Former president Nelson Mandela, commenting on the much-publicised spat between tripartite alliance partners, came out in full support of President Thabo Mbeki and the African National Congress (ANC).
Speaking at the launch of Walter and Albertina Sisulu’s biography in Johannesburg on Tuesday, Mandela emphasised unity and berated alliance members who publicly criticised the party’s decisions.
”When an ANC member goes out and publicly criticises it, the party has every right to discipline that member. Any organisation worth its salt would never allow that kind of behaviour,” he said.
Following Mbeki’s recent attacks on ”ultra-leftists” within the alliance, there has been media speculation that SA Communist Party and Congress of SA Trade Union members stand to be axed from the party’s national executive committee because of differences with the government’s economic policies.
Mandela said media reports suggesting that dissenting voices were no longer tolerated and that he himself has been ”gagged” from publicly airing opinions differing with those of the government were not true.
”I am told by the media that I am gagged. No ANC member has ever told me that. Criticism and open debate are the lifeblood of the ANC and that is why the organisation is the flagship of this country’s democracy.”
Heaping praise on Mbeki, Mandela said he had often remarked that despite all the criticism Mbeki continued to receive, no previous South African prime minister or president had done better.
”It is surprising that those who criticise him often are not the formerly oppressed masses who would have been bitter, but those who have gorged themselves with all the privileges of apartheid.”
Mandela said the seven-decades of unity between the SACP and the ANC should not be let to falter due to ”enemies”.
The ANC in the 1950s used to rely solely on the SACP for its financial survival, and that should not be forgotten easily, he said.
”Those who used to oppress us or work with our oppressors are the ones now trying to teach us how to behave and who should be our friends. That can never be allowed to happen,” he said. – Sapa