The conflict in the African National Congress is not between a populist camp and a technocratic and aloof elite, according to United Democratic Movement president Bantu Holomisa.
”This is hogwash,” Holomisa writes in a discussion document being circulated to party structures ahead of the party’s national congress in Mthatha next month.
”The war we are seeing is between two camps, both motivated by greed for power and control over the resources of the country, who will adopt any ideology for as long as they think it is expedient.”
Holomisa, himself once a senior ANC member, writes that another ”carefully cultivated myth” is that this conflict is a battle between beleaguered ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma and the movement’s president, Thabo Mbeki.
In fact, he says, it is nothing of the sort.
Mbeki, he suggests, has cleverly positioned himself as a ”lightning rod” for the attention of the other camp.
”Whilst they are focusing all their energy on him, and embarrassing themselves in the process, Mbeki is almost certainly waiting for them to exhaust all their energy and options.
”At this point, Mbeki will step smoothly aside, appearing to be a perfect statesman, and the new ‘compromise’ presidential candidate will appear.
”What Mbeki is currently doing is to draw the fire of his enemies away from his secretly chosen and as yet carefully hidden successor.”
Referring to corruption at all levels of the government, Holomisa blames the trouble not on the rotten apple, but on ”the lack of leadership and political will to remove that bad apple”.
”We must convince voters and opinion-makers that the ANC cannot rule unconditionally for all eternity, that in fact the ANC is no longer fit to rule,” he writes. — Sapa