President Thabo Mbeki has bluntly given his support to a Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu) campaign to protect former deputy president Jacob Zuma, and pledged on Friday to unite “the entirely of our movement in a determined offensive” to defeat any conspiracy to discredit him.
Mbeki, writing in his regular internet letter on Friday, said he is convinced that the movement — including the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party and Cosatu — must expose and confront any factions that may exist within the ANC and the rest of the democratic movement “which might be engaged in a conspiracy to discredit comrade Zuma”.
Mbeki dismissed Zuma as deputy president of the country in June.
The president — who noted the SACP and ANC Youth League’s concern at the manner in which the Scorpions had raided Zuma’s Johannesburg and Nkandla homes this week — said it is “perfectly obvious that a conclusion has been drawn by some within the ranks of the ANC, the [tripartite] alliance and beyond, that comrade Zuma is victim to a political trial and/or deliberate hostile political persecution”.
He noted the urgent meeting of the alliance partners this week, indicating that he is glad the dispute has been thrashed out.
Referring to Zuma’s upcoming trial for corruption, Mbeki acknowledged that those who believe a political trial is being carried out have reached the conclusion “to adopt political positions and engage in political actions ostensibly intended to protect the deputy president from hostile political actions”.
“I am firmly of the view that no member of the ANC, the alliance and the rest of the democratic movement should be subjected to what the SACP called ‘hidden political agendas’, whatever the content of these agendas,” he said.
Turning to allegations against himself, Mbeki said: “I am informed that some within our broad movement, who believe that [ANC] deputy president Zuma is a victim of a counter-revolutionary, capitalist and neo-liberal offensive, are convinced that as president of the ANC and the republic [Mbeki himself], I occupy the leading position in the political onslaught against deputy president Zuma.
“I understand that these are spreading the story that, presumably for counter-revolutionary reasons, I am opposed to comrade Zuma becoming president of the ANC and the republic.
“This has led some of our own members to make public demands that are unprecedented in the 90-year history of the ANC, that seek to determine who our leaders should be, with absolutely no regard for the democratic processes and traditions of our movement.
“I understand that this is being done because some have communicated the notion that what we are involved in is a factional right-wing/left-wing struggle, represented respectively by the president and the deputy president of the ANC,” said Mbeki.
“This understanding, whatever its merits or demerits, has already caused great harm to the ANC, the alliance, the broad democratic movement, the democratic revolution and the country.
“Accordingly, the alliance leadership must confront it head-on, with no equivocation of any kind.
Mbeki suggested that the alliance should “immediately constitute a commission of inquiry to establish the truth or otherwise of the allegation that members of the ANC and the broad democratic movement, including the president of the ANC, have been and are involved in a conspiracy targeted at marginalising or destroying deputy president Zuma.” — I-Net Bridge