‘The problems of Cope are in the leadership’

Congress of the People co-founder Mluleki George said on Tuesday that the fledgling opposition party’s problems are in its leadership.

”Our biggest challenge as Cope is to be a strong organisation, to do what Cope was founded for, because the problems of Cope are not on the ground, the problems of Cope are in the leadership which, to me, even that one is a temporary problem,” said George.

He was addressing the media in Polokwane on Tuesday evening where the party’s national executive committee was meeting provincial leaders, SABC radio news reported.

Cope had been plagued by in-fighting, with its former election head Simon Grindrod being suspended and former second deputy president Lynda Odendaal resigning last week.

The new opposition party’s former spokesperson, Sipho Ngwema, on Tuesday published a letter to Odendaal on Facebook, reported Business Day.

He called Odendaal a novice and said she was the ”Sarah Palin” of Cope.

Former African National Congress veterans Mbhazima Shilowa, Mosiuoa Lekota and former deputy defence minister George broke away from the ruling party late last year to form Cope.

On Monday, the party’s general secretary Charlotte Lobe briefed the media about decisions taken at the weekend’s congress national committee meeting, where plans to strengthen the party were discussed.

She said the party had ”co-opted” the former deputy president of the country, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, into its national leadership.

Mlambo-Ngcuka, a staunch ally of former president Thabo Mbeki, was unveiled as a Cope member in the lead-up to elections, but refused then to be part of the leadership team. Lobe said she could not comment on suggestions that Mlambo-Ngcuka was likely to be a candidate for the party’s presidency, saying the matter was to be discussed at the next CNC meeting. The decision to bring her in is seen as an effort to defuse leadership tensions between Lekota and Shilowa.

Despite continued denials that there was a leadership tussle in the party, Lobe said Cope’s priority was to fight ‘the emergence of tendencies that have the potential of destroying Cope”, such as ‘factionalism, opportunism and tribalism”. In a first sign that the party was acknowledging that Lekota and Shilowa have ambitions to occupy the presidency of the party, Lobe said ‘leadership contests” in Cope do not constitute ‘divisions” but were a sign of democracy.

‘It would be a myth to pretend that Cope does not have challenges,” said Lobe. She however said these ‘challenges” did not amount to a crisis.