The South African Communist Party has come out against a South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) proposal for a presidential third term, saying the country is not short of progressive leadership.
”As the SACP we believe that the decision to limit the presidential terms to two was in all respects one of the best decisions we made as a country and as a movement,” the party said in a statement on Monday.
”It will therefore be very wrong to amend the existing Constitution on this matter. We believe as the SACP that our country is not short of progressive leadership.”
The SACP said it will never support a change of the two-term presidency.
Sanco president Mlungisi Hlongwane said amending the Constitution to allow a third term would enable the country to keep good people in that office, and is not intended to benefit President Thabo Mbeki.
”It is important to underline that we are talking about an institution, not an individual,” Hlongwane said. ”We may require the expertise of a president and we may want his term extended. It is coincidental that we proposed these constitutional amendments to be discussed while Thabo Mbeki is president.”
The proposal is contained in a Sanco submission to the African Peer Review Mechanism and is being presented to the organisation’s 6,3-million members during roadshows, he said.
Mbeki is currently serving his last term, scheduled to end in 2009.
South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported that Hlongwane did not have the support of the body’s national executive committee as claimed.
Dumisani Mthalane, the Sanco president in KwaZulu-Natal, said that a member simply made a comment at the organisation’s meeting in December last year that Mbeki should stand for a third term.
Hlongwane denied this and said Mthalane had not been present at the meeting on December 16 and 17 where the resolution was taken and that he only arrived on December 18.
”You could even call it ill discipline,” he said.
People should not be oversensitive about the subject of a third term and there are laws and the Bill of Rights to prevent presidential abuse of power. The system of proportional representation allows a party to recall an unsuitable candidate, Hlongwane said.
Meanwhile, Fikile Mbalula, president of the African National Congress Youth League, said: ”South Africa is a constitutional state. We believe in it [the 1996 Constitution] and will defend it.”
Mbalula also questioned whether the proposal was Sanco’s or Hlongwane’s own.
Limits on presidential terms have been introduced in several countries to prevent abuses of power and are seen as a sign of political credibility by countries shedding decades of oppression. — Sapa