The outcome of the African National Congress’s (ANC) leadership contest is up to its membership and the contest should not be seen in a negative light, President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday.
The people nominated were ”not nominated because they are enemies”, and should not treat one another as such, he said in an South African Broadcasting Corporation radio interview.
It was a normal part of the democratic process, even within the ANC.
”I think let’s just respect what the membership says,” Mbeki said.
”Of course members should be perfectly entitled to conclude ‘we would prefer such and such a person for such and such a position’.
”I suppose the membership would look at various issues, various factors … or the progress that had been made in various areas.
”From my point of view, it’s perfectly all right if ANC structures conduct these democratic processes and nominate whoever they want.”
But he also warned members needed to accept the ”consequences” of their choice.
”We really need to accept the consequences of our own affirmation of the democratic processes within the ANC.”
One had to accept that the ANC constitution allowed any member to run for any position in the party.
”I think we’ve got to accept that, and so when people run for any position in the ANC that has to be very much part of the nature of the ANC.”
It was important that the contest be handled as a ”normal democratic process”.
”The people who might be opposing one another in this context must not see themselves as enemies, and therefore ‘when I win, I’m going to fix my enemy who opposed me’.
”That’s not part of this democratic process,” he said.
Mbeki and his party deputy Jacob Zuma are the only two people who have been nominated by the ANC provinces and leagues for the leadership of the party, which comes up for review at the ANC’s national conference in Polokwane later this month.
However, nominations can still be made from the floor.
Mbeki said that while the democratic contest in itself should not be worrying, the way it was handled could create problems.
”If you have an ANC that destroys itself because we’ve got these entrenched factions; that has to be avoided.”
It was important that the current debate and campaigning not be handled in a manner ”as though there is no tomorrow”.
”After we finish in Polokwane there will be a tomorrow, there must be an ANC. An ANC which has its tasks and responsibilities to the people.
”You can’t treat the Polokwane national conference as the beginning and end of everything. You’ve got to consider what happens afterwards,” he said.
People might be campaigning, but they had to conduct themselves in a manner that recognised the ANC had a responsibility to the future.
Mbeki also rejected the notion that there would be two centres of power if the ANC president and the president of the country were different people.
The politicians deployed to the government by the ANC were accountable to the ANC, which was the body that originated policy.
”There isn’t any major policy that government has implemented since 1994, there isn’t one single major policy position … that hasn’t emanated from decisions of the ANC,” he said.
”I’m quite certain that this notion of two centres of power, that there’s a government made up of ANC people deployed by the ANC, who pursue policies that are not ANC policies, is wrong.”
He also rejected a suggestion that he had centralised power around himself, saying he had consulted widely within the ANC on both Cabinet appointments, and the appointment of premiers.
”I’ve posed this question to ANC structures, asking what this so-called centralisation of power was, and what its manifestations were.
”And really nobody has answered this,” he said. – Sapa