Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon might not get his wished-for televised debate with President Thabo Mbeki, but the African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal is prepared to take him on publicly, it said on Tuesday.
ANC spokesperson Dumisani Makhaye said the provincial ANC branch invited ”the leader of the Democratic Alliance Lance Corporal Tony Leon” to a public debate on national radio or television with ”any branch member of his choice” from the ANC or its youth or women’s leagues.
DA communications director Nick Clelland-Stokes said the DA would debate with anyone from the ANC at branch level ”with pleasure”, but that the point in a Leon-Mbeki debate was that this would bring the leaders of the two biggest parties together.
”The leaders of the two biggest parties should get a chance to debate like in any normal democracy,” he said.
”It is appropriate at that level.”
Debate on this debate has had the ANC and the DA at each other’s throats since Friday, when Leon challenged Mbeki to a national, televised debate in his weekly newsletter.
ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said Mbeki was too busy to engage with Leon, and accused the DA of wanting to use the public debate to improve its profile.
”The DA’s challenge to President Thabo Mbeki to engage in a televised debate with Tony Leon is nothing more than a transparent attempt by the DA to elevate the profile and stature of its leader,” Ngonyama said on Monday.
”If the leader of the DA wants to improve his image and profile among South Africans, he should do so on his own account and not hang onto the coattails of President Mbeki,” Ngonyama said in a statement.
Earlier on Monday DA chief whip Douglas Gibson said the refusal was a sign of growing presidential arrogance, disregard for the democratic process, and disrespect for the people.
Gibson said before the 1994 election, former president Nelson Mandela found time to debate with then president FW de Klerk on television, during the 1996 election in the United States President Bill Clinton debated with his Republican rival, Bob Dole, and last year Nigerian President Olusegun Abasanjo was prepared to debate with his main challenger in the Nigerian presidential elections.
All these leaders were able to find the time to debate their rivals because they recognised the centrality of such a contest to the electoral process.
”It is only Thabo Mbeki who does not have the time, or the courage, to engage in public debate. By running away from a debate with Tony Leon, Mbeki is running away from the voters of South Africa.
”It is time he stopped, stood his ground, and defended his record as president and the policies his government has implemented,” Gibson said. – Sapa