“The media call me ‘Tony Yengeni, disgraced ANC leader, convicted fraudster and former chief whip’ and, by doing that, you ridicule and pour scorn on me. There’s a selective morality at play for people like myself and Jacob Zuma,” Western Cape ANC strongman Tony Yengeni said in a rare interview this week.
Yengeni, who was arrested again recently on charges of drinking and driving in Cape Town, is an angry man. He believes he is being singled out and targeted. “I think there are people out there who think that this native is too arrogant and needs to be put in his place. It’s not a race thing — it’s political,” he said. He did not want to talk about the allegations of drunk driving, saying the matter is before the court.
Yengeni will cast his vote as a national executive council member in Polokwane. He said the leadership contest between Jacob Zuma and President Thabo Mbeki “has destroyed the unity that’s fundamental to the ANC”.
“The ANC is being brutally tested and if we don’t address what’s going on, we will go down. What’s happening in the ANC is a struggle of the new to be born and the old to recede. The old doesn’t go so easily — it’s trying to entrench itself — but eventually the new will be born.”
Yengeni is critical of both Zuma and Mbeki “and their generation” for failing to make way for a younger generation. “They’ve dug their heels in on the political stage. We need to have change. We can’t continue like this. We need a more vibrant leadership which is committed to the aspirations of the poorest of the poor.”
Asked if this means he is supporting a third candidate, such as Tokyo Sexwale, Yengeni did not mince his words: “I support comrade Zuma. He is a seasoned revolutionary and although he’s not an angel, he has the gravitas, experience and intelligence to unite the organisation.”
The leadership battle between Mbeki and Zuma is not merely over personalities, but is based on major policy differences between them. “To deny these differences is to vulgarise all that’s happening in the ANC. It’s politically dishonest to see the leadership battle merely as a power struggle between these two men,” he said.
“What’s happening in the ANC now is about policy and ideology and it’s disingenuous to suggest otherwise. Zuma wants to reassert the centrality of the ANC over all other structures — the ANC must be the centre around which other structures rotate. Government is not the centre of power — the ANC is,” he said.
Mbeki and Zuma also differ about the appointments of premiers and mayors. “Currently these appointments are done by the president. It will be recommended to congress that premiers and executive mayors must be appointed by the provincial executive committee of the ANC — no longer shall you have an individual deciding who shall be premier.”
The integration of the Scorpions into the police is another point separating the two contenders for power. “We’re saying they should be integrated as a matter of urgency,” Yengeni said.
“Lastly, there is the issue of the developmental state. The policy conference will recommend intervention in areas of extreme poverty to lift the standards of living of the poorest of the poor,” Yengeni said.
“The ANC leadership must change. We need to debate issues again and do away with intellectual arrogance and denialist attitudes towards uncomfortable things like HIV/Aids and crime,” he said.
Yengeni sounded alarm-bells for the conference saying that people are “no longer listening to each other because we’re too entrenched in our positions and there’s this false notion of one side vanquishing the other side which I think is very dangerous. The rock upon which the ANC was formed is unity and its policies. Very forceful anti-democratic tendencies are at play within the organisation at the moment,” he said.