Baleka Mbete called on ANC branches to prepare themselves to fight the EFF in provincial legislatures and municipalities.
Some ANC MPs are plotting to oust President Jacob Zuma, according to the ruling party’s chairperson Baleka Mbete.
Ever since Zuma was elected leader of the ANC in Mangaung in 2012, a new war started within the party, she told the Limpopo provincial general council in Polokwane on Sunday.
Disloyal and selfish members of the ANC have made it their business to fight their fellow comrades to advance their own interests, she said.
Mbete urged ANC members to defend Zuma from a group that was continuing to plot to unseat Zuma before the National General Council later this year.
Faction fighting
“We are a nicely organised group of people working in Parliament, nicely organised not for ourselves only but also for mischievous agendas. There are those who were defeated, it happens at regional level, provincial level. You go to conference, you stand, you are defeated; it’s not a huge thing, so other comrades get elected, so you support.
“You support them in leading, because none of us were born with the right to lead the ANC, leaders must come and go, then be defeated and simply fall in line,” said Mbete.
But she said faction fighting had become a norm in the ANC, especially after an elective conference when a certain faction is defeated.
“Once they are defeated, it becomes a matter of war, it’s fought and it will be plotted against the team that is leading today.”
She questioned this kind of behaviour.
“We go to Polokwane in 2007, and elect a leadership led by Msholozi (Zuma), it becomes a war and it’s still being fought.
Local government elections
“There are people there in Parliament, who have allowed themselves to become [part] of a whole huge agenda, Zuma must go… Zuma must go and they can’t wait for the next congress of the ANC or NGC,” she said.
“Where is the ANC when that is happening, because the ANC just elected Zuma a little over two years ago, and this starts immediately when we come back, so what they ANC has decided no longer matters.”
She warned that the 2016 local government elections would be difficult unless the party admitted its fault and corrected them.
“If we look at the story over time, the support of the ANC is coming down. It’s declining, not because people don’t love the ANC. There are things perhaps we have done wrong, we have to acknowledge that, and admit and correct where we know.”