South African President Thabo Mbeki has repeated his willingness to stand for re-election as leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) if the party asks him, state radio reported on Wednesday.
ANC branches have started the process of nominating candidates for party president ahead of a party conference in December where a new leader will be selected.
The contest has already sparked a bruising leadership battle and revealed deep chasms within the party.
Traditionally, whoever becomes the ANC’s next leader becomes South Africa’s next president, given the party’s dominance in local politics since the end of apartheid in 1994.
The Constitution does not allow Mbeki to run for country president after his second term expires in 2009 but analysts say he may wish to maintain influence in South African politics by staying on as ANC president.
”If in the nominations process the membership of the ANC says we want Thabo Mbeki to continue to be president of the ANC, you can’t say no,” Mbeki told the South African Broadcasting Corporation in Windhoek during a visit to Namibia.
”Indeed, if the membership of the ANC feels that I should be the president of the ANC, I’m saying it’s within the culture and traditions of the ANC and I understand them very well,” he said in comments carried by local the South African Press Association.
The leadership struggle has centred around Mbeki and fired former deputy president Jacob Zuma, whose left-leaning supporters have accused the Mbeki government’s centrist policies of failing millions of poor South Africans.
‘The ANC is not divided’
Meanwhile, the ANC is not divided on the issue of leadership, Zuma said on the weekend. Delivering a tribute to former ANC president Oliver Tambo in Kimberley, he also repeated — twice — his assertion that the party would rule until Jesus returned to Earth.
”Members of the ANC have preferences about the leadership of the ANC, [but] not because they don’t like others. It’s not true,” said Zuma, who is seen as current party president Thabo Mbeki’s strongest rival for the post. ”Up until [former ANC president Albert] Luthuli, in the national conference of the ANC there was always contestation. People contested positions.
”Even at the point when Luthuli was elected there was contestation. It was from Luthuli, Tambo, Mandela that there was no contestation. Now, some people don’t know that. Today, when members expressed preferences, the media labelled them camps.
”When we speak robustly, people outside the ANC think we are fighting. They think there’s a big fight. They totally don’t understand the ANC … the ANC is not divided.”
The culture of the ANC was that it would unite behind whoever was chosen as leader in December. ”If it is comrade Thabo Mbeki, we unite behind him once he is elected by the conference. If it is anybody else, we’ll do the same.” — Reuters, Sapa