Absence has not made the heart grow fonder for former president Thabo Mbeki, South African Communist Party (SACP) general secretary Blade Nzimande said on Monday.
”Today, apart from some Cope-ites, there is hardly a single journalist, opposition party member, academic, business leader, or political commentator who speaks with any nostalgia for the Mbeki presidential era,” said Nzimande in presenting the SACP’s discussion paper — ahead of its December conference — to the media in Johannesburg.
Nzimande said when Mbeki was recalled last September there were ”dire warnings of chaos and meltdown” from the ”reformist centre”.
”The most hysterical of which was Archbishop [Desmond] Tutu’s prediction of imminent ‘civil war’.”
Now, he said ”there is an almost complete national consensus that Mbeki’s aloof and intolerant personality was a disaster … Thankfully we are now once more in a situation in which national dialogue and debate are possible.”
Austerity measures
Nzimande also said on Monday that the government must be sensitive to the needs of people when spending money.
Responding to a question about the purchase of luxury cars for government officials, Nzimande, who is also minister of higher education, said he wished the question had not come up.
However, what he said was that while ”I’m not speaking for Cabinet”, Cabinet was currently assigning certain ministers to look at austerity measures, and the SACP supported this.
”We need to look holistically at austerity measures, but beyond just the recession,” he said.
”We need to say, what do we need to do especially that government does not appear insensitive to the needs of the people?”
Nzimande stressed that he was not saying what happened with the purchase of cars was him insinuating that government was being insensitive to the people.
Nzimande raised eyebrows recently when he bought a ministerial car for R1,1-million. — Sapa