Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Penuell Maduna is receiving little sympathy from —and has even become the butt of jokes in — the African National Congress after publicly announcing that he would not be available for a Cabinet post next year.
A senior ANC national executive committee member described Maduna as a ”drama queen” who likes to be the centre of attention, while another quipped: ”It was very presumptuous of Maduna to think he was going to be offered a position in the Cabinet next year that he was already declining to accept it.”
Others simply pointed out that several ”capable former ministers like Pallo Jordan, are now sitting in Parliament as ordinary members”.
Former ANC lawyer Linda Zama, responding as an ordinary party member, commented: ”It begs the question whether we elected a responsible leadership not given to showmanship as I have been noticing. It is time we elected a new generation of capable and mature leaders.”
And, in a statement this week, the ANC’s national working committee remarked that it took a ”dim view” of Maduna’s decision to inform them of his non-availability for political office through the media.
The ANC leadership has been irked by Maduna since he publicly remarked that the organisation has been torn apart by allegations that Bulelani Ngcuka, the head of the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions, was an apartheid spy.
His support for Ngcuka, who at an August press conference announced that a ”prima facie” case of corruption existed against Deputy President Jacob Zuma, has also irritated the ANC. His public defence of Ngcuka’s decision to not prosecute Zuma further angered Luthuli House, which believed Zuma should have had his day in court to defend himself.
Two months ago Maduna also admitted that the controversy surrounding allegations that Zuma was involved in corruption had put the reputations of the deputy president, the government and the country at stake.
While the divisions in the ranks of the ANC and the government are often public knowledge, it is not the done thing for senior officials in the organisation to acknowledge them formally. So far, he has been the only minister who has been explicit on the corruption allegations surrounding Zuma.
According to former comrades, Maduna has a history of shooting his mouth off. They cite an incident during the 1980s when an ANC member was involved in a murder in Tanzania. Both Oliver Tambo, then president of the ANC, and President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania decided that the matter would go to court. But, insiders recall, Maduna called a press conference to announce that the ANC member would not be prosecuted.