The ”public spats” that were played out in the media by ANC MP Ebrahim Rasool and ANC chief whip in the Western Cape legislature Max Ozinsky have led to their temporary suspension from the party, pending a disciplinary process.
Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana, who is the head of the provincial task team, told the Mail & Guardian on Tuesday that both ANC officials had been asked not to discuss their ongoing clashes in public.
”It was a simple thing,” said Mdladlana after a press conference on Tuesday. ”I had spoken to them and asked them to bring their problems to the ANC and not to have public spats, but they continued to do so and so we will institute disciplinary proceedings against them.”
Rasool and Ozinsky have been involved in a dispute over allegations made by Western Cape Premier Helen Zille three weeks ago that Ozinsky and ANC provincial legislature member Mcebisi Skwatsha had leaked information to the Democratic Alliance, which had been the basis for her criticism of the social development project.
Skwatsha told the Mail & Guardian in an interview recently that this was tantamount to ”accusing him of treason”, and denied having been involved in any leaks to the DA.
But matters came to a head after Rasool responded in the Mail & Guardian to the interview with Skwatsha in its ”Right to Reply” column this week.
Rasool said the admission by Zille explained a lot and ”gives an insight into the effect of the Faustian pact between some in the ANC and the DA”.
”It explains why it was more important for that ANC to use its few months in power to drive investigations and reports to try to thoroughly kill all remnants of those they replaced rather than govern — with loud cheers and commendations from the DA,” wrote Rasool.
However, in the comment piece by Ozinsky at the top of the page in the same issue of the Mail & Guardian, he claimed that Rasool had become premier after an election campaign coordinated by him and Skwatsha.
”Rasool became intimately involved in briefing journalists, and at least one senior journalist from the Cape Argus, but I believe more, benefited financially from their proximity to a web of companies contracted by the province,” wrote Ozinsky. ”I don’t make this allegation lightly; there is proof. The journalist was compelled to resign because of it.”
Ozinsky also claimed that in trying to do his job as an ANC public representative, he had been confronted by serious misuses of power by Rasool.
He said that out of loyalty to the ANC, he had not commented on these and other concerns up until now.
”I now believe that my silence has allowed the damage to continue for too long,” wrote Ozinsky.
Ozinsky declined to comment when contacted on Tuesday.
As a result of the ongoing factionalism in the province, Rasool was fired by the ANC as premier of the Western Cape in July last year. He was replaced by the Lynne Brown, who is now leader of the opposition in the province.
It is widely believed that the in-fighting was one of the reasons the ANC lost the April elections to the DA in the province.