ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe took a swipe at youth league president Julius Malema in Johannesburg on Monday, saying his insistence on referring to Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille and her election team as “a madam and two stooges” was not ANC policy.
“The media has this thing about Malema. They love him and they hate him. If he says anything they will immediately elevate it to the policy of the ANC,” he said at the Gauteng ANC’s election hub on Monday.
Mantashe was speaking to journalists at the Media Lounge in Bryanston, Johannesburg, which has served as the headquarters for the Gauteng ANC during the election campaign.
Asked about Malema’s branding of Zille during his campaigning for the ANC, leading up to the local government elections on May 18, Mantashe answered: “To call them a madam and two stooges cannot be ANC policy.”
Mantashe, however, could not hide his irritation with Zille for the way she and the DA have appropriated ANC struggle heroes such as Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo.
‘Desperate’
“This shows they are running a desperate campaign. How can Zille be the custodian for Madiba and Tambo?”
But he quickly regained his calm, reiterating that it was not ANC culture to attack the DA.
“We talk about us, our programme and our problems, we don’t attack the DA because then we give them airtime they don’t pay for.”
Mantashe also let slip a reason why, during its electioneering, the ruling party has been hell-bent on focusing on the campaign to save money — sometimes to its own detriment.
Asked why the ruling party insisted on running the elections campaign from Luthuli House instead of delegate more responsibilities, Mantashe said: “A province will say they want to do something and send us a quote for how much it will cost. Then we [national leadership] say we can cut costs because we talk to the service providers. For example, if you go to a stadium they’ll quote you millions, but in the end you pay only thousands.”
Mantashe would not divulge how big the ANC election budget was, but said it was not R200-million, as has been widely speculated.
He admitted there were problems with centralisation, however, because it meant the ANC could not conduct effective quality control.
“We cannot check the quality of services delivered or the quality of the councillors that are chosen.”
On voter turnout, Mantashe said he would “put his head on a block”, and promised there would be greater turnout than the 48% of eligible voters who cast their ballot in the previous local government elections.
“The mood is close to that of the national elections. It is part of the South African psyche: When there are many things they are unhappy about they come out to vote.”
In response to suggestions that the DA could chip away at the black voter support that was previously the sole domain of the ANC, he said that, on the contrary, the ANC was set to take away some of the DA’s traditional support.
“I will put my head on a block that the white vote coming to us will increase,” Mantashe promised.