The present South African government will serve out its term, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. He was speaking at his official residence in Pretoria a day after the closing of the African National Congress’s (ANC) national conference in Polokwane that saw Jacob Zuma toppling him as party president.
”I have no reason to assume that there would be anything that would stop the government serving the full term for which it was elected,” he told reporters in Pretoria.
Some media reports have speculated that Mbeki may be forced to call an early general election following the election of Zuma as ANC leader.
Mbeki said the relationship between the government and the African National Congress will carry on as usual. ”[Zuma] said nothing would happen, as indeed nothing will happen as a consequence of the elections.”
At the conference, Zuma said in his first public speech that relations between the ANC and government would continue to run smoothly.
The only difference between Zuma and himself is their leadership style, Mbeki said, adding he is not ”aloof”, contrary to what people think.
Referring to Zuma, Mbeki said: ”He is a man of the people. People are entitled to make that sort of distinction.” People who prefer one person over another engage in a process to ensure that the person they prefer is elected.
The behaviour displayed by delegates on the first day of the ANC’s national conference in Polokwane was ”quite unacceptable”, Mbeki said.
Corruption
Mbeki also said the law should take its course on corruption allegations made against Zuma.
”All of us in the ANC have insisted, even … Zuma himself, that the law must take its course,” he said.
On Thursday, Mokotedi Mpshe, acting national director of public prosecutions, said an investigation into the graft allegations against Zuma was complete and that evidence pointed to a case being taken to court.
The bribery and fraud allegations have been made in connection with the multimillion-rand arms deal. Zuma has denied any wrongdoing.
Because of the ANC’s electoral dominance, Zuma is expected to become president when Mbeki leaves office in 2009. A graft conviction would force him to stand down.
Uncertainty over the charges is one of several issues causing concern among investors after Zuma’s election.
‘Opportunists and careerists’
Meanwhile, writing in his capacity as outgoing ANC president on the party’s website, Mbeki said on Friday that apparent divisions and conflicts before and during the party’s national conference in Polokwane was partly due to ”opportunists and careerists” within its ranks.
He said the first phase of the national democratic revolution (NDR) had required cadres to make enormous sacrifices, including losing their lives. ”However, it attracted patriots who were ready to make these sacrifices.
”The cost that attached to membership of our movement served as a filter that protected the ANC from large-scale invasion by opportunists and careerists,” he said.
Following the democratic victory of 1994, the second phase of the NDR meant that membership of the ANC did not carry the cost of banning, banishment, imprisonment, torture, exile and death that confronted it during the first phase.
Instead, membership of the ANC held out the promise of significant personal material benefit.
”The second phase of the NDR opens the way for our members to reap immense personal benefits,” he said.
Precisely at the historical moment when the ANC needed cadres of the highest political and moral calibre, because of the benefits that could accrue from membership and the elimination of the threat of repression, ”we have attracted into our ranks the opportunists and careerists who would never have had the courage and devotion to principle that were required of our cadres during the first phase of the NDR”.
”Thus, though requiring cadres of the highest calibre, it attracts into its ranks people who are contemptuous of all notions of patriotism and serving the people, who are driven by a value system characterised by the pursuit of personal wealth at all costs.”
‘Internal problems’
Undoubtedly, some of the ”internal problems” that created the apparent divisions and conflicts before and during the Polokwane conference originated from this contradiction, Mbeki said.
To solve these internal problems would require that the ANC strengthen itself enormously as an agent of fundamental social transformation capable of carrying out the tasks of the second phase of the NDR.
”The task ahead of us as a movement will be to act together in unity, respecting all the outcomes of the 52nd national conference. This will ensure that we use the few years leading to the celebration of the centenary of the ANC in 2012 truly to accelerate the advance towards the achievement of the goal of a better life for all our people.
”We, genuine patriots and members of the ANC, have the unique responsibility and duty to ensure that the ANC is the kind of revolutionary movement that has the capacity to lead the sustained offensive for the realisation of this goal,” Mbeki said. — Sapa, Reuters