President Thabo Mbeki says his statements dealing with the Jacob Zuma affair can ”by no stretch of imagination” be interpreted as expressing ”a hostile or malicious attitude” to the former deputy president.
In his regular internet column on Friday, ANC Today, the president — who also leads the ruling African National Congress — dwelt first on his dismissal of Zuma in June as the nation’s deputy president, resulting from the findings of Judge Hillary Squires in the Schabir Shaik corruption trial. Shaik was Zuma’s business adviser.
Mbeki noted that personally he continues ”to hold the Hon Jacob Zuma in high regard and I am convinced that this applies to members of Parliament … we shall continue to draw on his experience and expertise where the need arises”.
The president also noted that the national general council — the policy conference of the ANC — in July expressed its support for Zuma by not accepting his office to withdraw from his elected ANC position as the ruling movement’s deputy president or second in command. This offer had initially been supported by the national working committee, the president noted.
Mbeki noted that he said at the time: ”Correctly the national general council has expressed its support for our deputy president during these trying and painful times …”
The president emphasised that: ”By no stretch of imagination could these statements be read as expressing a hostile or malicious attitude towards the deputy president.”
Mbeki argued that ”unfortunately, since then, the entirely false assertion has been propagated that, during the period immediately preceding the national general council [NGC], the national working committee and the national executive committee had taken the initiative to remove the deputy president from his elected positions.
”Accordingly, the decision of the NGC has erroneously been interpreted as a defeat of the elected leadership of our movement.”
The president said these issues were frankly discussed by last weekend’s national executive committee (NEC).
The NEC also addressed a variety of other important matters, ”including the unity and cohesion of our movement, the need to deal with factional rumour-mongering, the need for the secretary general’s office to coordinate activities in support of the deputy president, the obligation on members of the NEC to maintain close contact with the membership, processes leading to the election of our national leadership, and the need to engage the membership in mass work to advance the goals of the national democratic revolution”. — I-Net Bridge