The ANC plan for party secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe to interview dismissed deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge is a compromise between those who want her disciplined for her comments about the ANC president and those who feel she should not be sanctioned by the party.
The ANC’s national working committee decided on Monday to delegate Motlanthe to talk to Madlala-Routledge about her recent comments about ANC unity, its values and her future role in the party.
Madlala-Routledge said: ‘As we go towards December, I am going to be campaigning hard to get a leader or leaders [elected by the ANC national conference] I think will be brave to stand up for the truth, for the values my organisation, the ANC, stands for … I am going to work very hard in my branch, in my district, my province [KwaZulu-Natal], and all over, to make sure that we succeed to unite the ANC. That is very important — to unite the ANC — and choose a leader that the country will support.â€
Madlala-Routledge made the comments the day after Mbeki fired her on charges of insubordination.
Mbeki took exception in his weekly online column to her comments and hinted that some form of action would be taken against her.
‘Members of the ANC have asked what Ms Madlala-Routledge meant when she made these remarks. They have asked why she has suggested that the current leadership of the ANC has divided the ANC, and why she suggests it does not have the courage to stand up for the truth, why she suggests that our leadership has no regard for the values of our movement, and why she suggests that the leader of the ANC is not supported by our country.
‘Undoubtedly the ANC will deal with this matter as prescribed by its constitution, its normal procedures, its conventions and traditions, and our current challenges,†Mbeki wrote.
Madlala-Routledge did try to take certain precautions before rejecting Mbeki’s request for her to resign. She consulted leaders in the ANC, including Motlanthe, before deciding to fax a letter from Luthuli House rejecting the request.
Motlanthe has been asked to find whether Madlala-Routledge could justify her comments and whether a disciplinary hearing would be appropriate.
One ANC leader said the move was designed to save the president from the embarrassment that would arise from a flat rejection of his bid to have her disciplined. ‘Bringing charges against this woman will just revive the publicity around her and entangle the ANC in a new controversy — unnecessarily,†the source said.
However, an ANC leader sympathetic to Mbeki said there appeared to be grounds for disciplining Madlala-Routledge, although the offence was not serious enough to warrant a dismissal.
‘By attacking the ANC president, she has attacked the ANC itself.â€
He said the final decision would rest on how Madlala-Routledge responded to Motlanthe’s inquiries.
‘If she insists that she was right and there was nothing wrong [with what] she did, she might be charged. However, if she apologises and admits that some of the things she said might be construed as an attack on the good name of the ANC, the matter will be laid to rest.
‘If you remember, the national executive committee member, Jeremy Cronin, once apologised for his comments about the Zanufication of the ANC — and that was the end of the issue.
‘She has said so many things which were not true, and she needs to provide an explanation. These include the reasons for her dismissal which, she said, included her visit to Frere Hospital when it clearly was not mentioned in the president’s letter. She also said some ministers, such as Transport Minister Jeff Radebe, had supported her — and he distanced himself from that.â€
In a sign of her growing stature in the tripartite alliance Madlala-Routledge was on Sunday elected to the South African Communist Party’s highest decision-making body, the politburo.