ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe (pictured right) has again taken a public stand against hard-line supporters of Jacob Zuma by insisting that the ANC must include backers of President Thabo Mbeki both in the party and in government.
In an interview with the Mail & Guardian, he also rejected criticism that he should not have hired an Mbeki man, former Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool, as his adviser.
Reacting to renewed agitation for Mbeki’s removal — at the weekend the SACP central committee repeated its call for him to go — Motlanthe said: ”This is a nonsensical argument; 50% of Mbeki’s Cabinet members are leaders of the ANC; they are national executive committee members. What is the expectation? That we exclude these people from the ANC?
”One of our key documents, the Strategy and Tactics document, says the role of the ANC is to unite our people. Asked about his recent pronouncement that Mbeki will stay in office until the end of his term, Motlanthe said he was merely articulating the publicly adopted ANC position. However, Motlanthe has not changed his view that Zuma is the victim of political persecution, while insisting that the trial will not negatively affect the ANC’s election campaign.
Motlanthe said that when Zuma became ANC president at the Polokwane conference he faced no charges. ”But two days after he was elected, the NPA [National Prosecuting Authority] announced that they were charging him.
”That is why people say this is a political trial. In addition, he initially faced two charges, but they added others, strengthening fears that he is being persecuted.”
Motlanthe was one of the first ANC leaders to criticise the Scorpions’ ”Hollywood style of operation” and supports the unit’s ”relocation” into the police.
”You can’t have police who also have powers to prosecute. You need checks and balances,” he said. ”At the moment the Scorpions can charge you and go and investigate later. It is wrong.”
Motlanthe said he had reminded his colleagues that it is not helpful to fight with the judiciary.
He pointed out that when there was anger in the ANC against Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke at the beginning of the year for declaring that he was not worried about what 4 000 ANC conference delegates had to say, he arranged a meeting with him to resolve the matter.
”We met and issued a joint statement and the matter was resolved.
”We must appreciate that these institutions of the judiciary must have a life way beyond their current incumbents.”
Motlanthe said he had never personally attacked the judiciary, although he confirmed saying that the Constitutional Court had ”vilified” Cape High Court Judge President John Hlophe by publicising its complaint against him before taking it to the Judicial Service Commission.
”I was addressing a June 16 event where I made the point [that] after recent events in which strangers were being attacked in so-called xenophobic attacks, the ANC provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha was stabbed at a public meeting and the Constitutional Court judges had vilified another judge, it would be easy for someone to say that as a country we are sinking into a flood.”