EDITORIAL: ANC, leave the corrupt behind
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It is time for President Cyril Ramaphosa to move on from unifying the ANC at all costs, cut his losses and work with those who are willing to do what is necessary for the party and, most importantly, the country.
It is more than two years since Ramaphosa was elected as president of the ANC on an unexpected ticket that caused different factions to merge in the top leadership of the ANC.
Given the fractious nature of ANC politics, it was never going to be an easy project to unify the different factions in the party.
But two years down the line, what is abundantly clear is that there are those in the party who want to work together for the good of both the country and the party, and those who are just not interested.
If party members are still not on the same page in terms of cleaning up the ANC and taking the fight against corruption seriously, Ramaphosa and the party should move on without them.
There can be no clearer case to be made for this than the lead-up to a meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee at the weekend.
While factionalism is a permanent undercurrent in the party, the battle lines were clearly drawn in the responses to a letter Ramaphosa wrote to the ANC’s members saying the party was accused No 1 in the dock for corruption.
The letter came in the wake of growing public anger as more allegations surfaced of corruption related to Covid-19 relief funds, and shortly after former Ethekwini mayor Zandile Gumede was appointed as a KwaZulu-Natal MPL, despite facing corruption charges.
The responses to the letter came from obviously hostile quarters in terms of the party’s divides, with the most notable being that of former president Jacob Zuma.
Zuma, who faces corruption charges and was forced to resign as president of the country by the ANC shortly after Ramaphosa was elected head of the party, said in the letter leaked on Friday that the move of saying the ANC was accused No 1 was rather “low and disappointing” as it implicated the entire ANC and its working-class members, while it was party leaders and those deployed in the state who had to account for the allegations they face.
Zuma was at pains to say that his letter did not attempt to undermine Ramaphosa or attribute every weakness or ...
It is more than two years since Ramaphosa was elected as president of the ANC on an unexpected ticket that caused different factions to merge in the top leadership of the ANC.
Given the fractious nature of ANC politics, it was never going to be an easy project to unify the different factions in the party.
But two years down the line, what is abundantly clear is that there are those in the party who want to work together for the good of both the country and the party, and those who are just not interested.
If party members are still not on the same page in terms of cleaning up the ANC and taking the fight against corruption seriously, Ramaphosa and the party should move on without them.
There can be no clearer case to be made for this than the lead-up to a meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee at the weekend.
While factionalism is a permanent undercurrent in the party, the battle lines were clearly drawn in the responses to a letter Ramaphosa wrote to the ANC’s members saying the party was accused No 1 in the dock for corruption.
The letter came in the wake of growing public anger as more allegations surfaced of corruption related to Covid-19 relief funds, and shortly after former Ethekwini mayor Zandile Gumede was appointed as a KwaZulu-Natal MPL, despite facing corruption charges.
The responses to the letter came from obviously hostile quarters in terms of the party’s divides, with the most notable being that of former president Jacob Zuma.
Zuma, who faces corruption charges and was forced to resign as president of the country by the ANC shortly after Ramaphosa was elected head of the party, said in the letter leaked on Friday that the move of saying the ANC was accused No 1 was rather “low and disappointing” as it implicated the entire ANC and its working-class members, while it was party leaders and those deployed in the state who had to account for the allegations they face.
Zuma was at pains to say that his letter did not attempt to undermine Ramaphosa or attribute every weakness or ...