Politicians should channel their energies toward the needs of South Africans, rather than battling it out for the position of president of South Africa or the African National Congress, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported President Thabo Mbeki as saying on Saturday.
Mbeki responded to a host of questions about controversies facing the ANC within the Zuma saga and the succession debate. He was responding to questions by delegates of the dialogue circle for the Gordan Institute of Business Science in Johannesburg on Saturday night.
Mbeki says while there might be ”squabbles” or ”fights” within the ruling party particularly about the succession, the objective of the party is to address the needs of ordinary South Africans.
When asked how the government was going to address the damage done to HIV/Aids campaign by the Zuma rape case, Mbeki said: ”The government would like to reaffirm its approach to HIV/Aids. It will be necessary to continuously repeat this message so that whatever might have been said or happened has no impact to what government is trying to do.”
Jacob Zuma, the former deputy president, was not present at the event, but most of the questions centred around him.
Mbeki was asked about Zuma’s behaviour and whether he could become the next president. Mbeki responded: ”What are the principle tasks of the ANC? The principle task is not to be fighting over leadership. We should be concentrating on improving the lives of our people …. positions are not decided by the ANC president or the secretary general. I can understand that people are ambitious to become leaders — that shouldn’t surprise anyone. If they want to become a leader — it has to be within the confines or the rules and regulations that govern the country.
”Some people want to have a seat for the presidency and some want to take over. What South Africans are saying is: ‘However you resolve your squabbles in the ANC, this is the direction we want for our country to take.”’
Concerning divisions within the ANC and its alliance partners Mbeki added: ”With regard to the controversies concerning the ANCYL [ANC Youth League], SACP [South African Communist Party] and Cosatu [Congress of South African Trade Unions] I’m quite certain that continuous engagements will help us to address these issues so that we can proceed from one common base.”
While the SACP decides whether it’ll contest elections alone, it seems Mbeki is still optimistic that the tripartite alliance can survive.
At the end, the president was diplomatic about the difficult questions saying: ”When they said I should come here, I thought it was as president of the republic and not to answer questions as ANC president.” – Sapa