Former president Nelson Mandela has pulled a South African Broadcasting Corporation advert in which he appears with President Thabo Mbeki, fearing that he would be seen to be endorsing Mbeki in the ANC’s succession battle, reported the Sunday Independent.
Mandela was not involved in mediating the stand-off between Mbeki and ANC deputy president Zuma and ”he will certainly not intervene”, Jakes Gerwel, chairperson of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, was quoted as saying.
There were fears internationally and locally that there could be an amendment to the Constitution that would allow Mbeki to serve a third term as president.
This is despite the fact that in 2004 Mandela said that Mbeki would not try to a amend the Constitution so that he could take the country’s helm once more.
The paper reported that the party’s top brass were in no doubt about the stress the ANC was under. This followed a three-day National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Kempton Park which ended on Saturday.
They met behind closed doors and were said to have been wading through a ”fairly extensive” document that dealt with ”fractions and frictions” of the leadership race.
Mbeki and Zuma, who attended the three-day meeting, were said to be uncharacteristically passive.
”Sources yesterday [Saturday] said that most of the members of the [NEC] believed that it was too late to prevent stand-offs between the Mbeki and Zuma factions.”
Fresh minds
Meanwhile, ANC intellectual Pallo Jordan told the Mail & Guardian on November 16 that the party needs fresh minds to lead it in the 21st century
Jordan argued that Mbeki has effectively been leader of the movement and the government for 15 years. It was now time for him to give the younger geneÂÂÂration a chance to lead the party.
Jordan denied being a member of a group of senior ANC leaders rumoured to be actively campaigning for a compromise candidate to take the reins at the party’s conference in Polokwane next month.
The M&G was told by a source at Luthuli House that he is among a number of ANC veterans who, concerned about the damage inflicted on the party by the succession race, are working behind the scenes to ensure that neither Zuma nor Mbeki stands for the presidency.