Is Thabo Mbeki still a true ANC cadre

By Comrade Spikiri

This question might sound like rhetoric, but it has dimensions about it that conjure certain very important perceptions about the ex-President of the Republic, Thabo Mbeki.

In recent times he has taken time to write a five page document in which he lambastes the current President of the ANC, Jacob Zuma, directly. His offence being: intimating in the open media that he would expect Mbeki to campaign for the ANC in the next general elections.

In his letter, like the biblical Pontius Pilate, he washes his hands basically on the ANC. He bemoans the fact that the ANC chose to go on public media and announce that he is part of their campaigning strategy to garner votes for the ANC.

In fact when the media bombarded the Executive of the ANC with questions seeking to know what Mbeki’s role would be after he had been recalled from being the President of the country, the former president silently accepted the role when it was pointing to him still continuing with the “In your public world view” engagements of brokering peace in Zimbabwe.

If the President is true to his statement that he does not want to rule from “beyond his grave” then one would have expected that he would have taken exception to the ANC’s announcement to the media, that they thought he was the best cadre for that job.

As South Africa, Africa and the world know right now, he never complained about not having been approached by the ANC before talking to the media. He took his jacket and he went to Zimbabwe to do exactly what the ANC had asked him to continue doing in the open media. He did not write five page letters to Zuma complaining that he had neither come to him face to face nor that he sent junior members of the ANC to talk to him.

So the question is: Is the former President going to pick and choose programmes that he wants to participate in under the auspices of the ANC and still be regarded a talisman of the ANC and the Zimbabwe quagmire.

From where I stand, the five page letter, written by Mbeki to Zuma is nothing but a lash in the dark.

Can we afford to have a cadre of the ANC who is enjoying lifetime benefits that he accumulated and will still continue to enjoy for the rest of his life that were given to him by the ANC to choose his terms of engagement within the broader mandate of the ANC for self-aggrandizement.

In short, the President sees the Zimbabwe saga as a ticket for him to play in high stakes as he has announced on many occasions some veiled threats that time will tell that he was better than the current and new coming leaders in the ANC.

The reaction of Zuma to the five page letter from the former President is quite inspirational. He has chosen, like he did during the month of being attacked and threatened with charges by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) that he would not say anything that would put the ANC in the bad light, he has always maintained steadfastly that the right time will come for him to divulge the real reasons why he felt he was being persecuted, and also why he thought the charges against him were politically motivated.

When asked by the media, about his response to the five page letter from Mbeki. He said this is a matter between ANC members and he would address it to the former President in the correct ANC formal protocols. It is a known factor that Mbeki has challenged Zuma to a public debate, to which Zuma has responded that after Polokwane, the platform for debate within the ANC has been thrown wide open. He has consistently told Mbeki and the media, that he observes the constitution of the ANC and if anybody within the ANC has got an issue to discuss, it must first be discussed within the ANC, and if there is anything that has to be communicated to the public it will be within the terms of the ANC.

The motive of Mbeki, all of a sudden being in favour of public debates is very questionable to say the least. The whole world knows that Tony Leon, the erstwhile leader of the DA, has over the years while holding the reigns in the DA, challenged Mbeki openly to a debate, to which the then President arrogantly told him to go and debate with the branch members of the ANC. Now what brings about the change in attitude towards public debates? Is it because, as he says, he knows intimately Jacob Zuma over a 30-year relationship that he now finds the platform for debate to target his soft spots that he gained access to, by being a close confidante in the man?

The whole behavior of Mbeki wreaks of hypocrisy. Given a chance, he would try to undermine Zuma in a public gallery. He will bring his constant companions in poets like Yeats et’al to heighten the fact that he had the luxury to attend the best schools and live a mink and manure life of first grade tobacco in his pipe.

Zuma has honestly, being the organic leader that he is, denied Mbeki his chance to once more appear on television and make his grandiose entrance and speak lofty ideas that most, among the poor and downtrodden people, won’t understand. He is also depriving the media a chance to be pompom girls and cheer leaders of the erstwhile President, while he would be trying his damndest to make the People’s Choice President look stupid.

We want to challenge the media, to start doing their work, by first visiting all the wine farms that are owned by the self-appointed protectors of the Freedom Charter in the family of, amongst others, Hellen Zille   and other opposition parties. Specifically the media must go to these businesses and enterprises to check the labour conditions of the staff that work in those farms and give us a report on how well they are doing in observing the labour laws of the country.

Secondly the media needs to get to the bottom of the relationship, between Radio 702 and the Shikota.

The public is very interested in knowing the relationship between ABSA and the Shikota. It is amazing that the media, up to now, have chosen to turn a blind eye, to these matters that are widely discussed in townships and rural areas. It is about time the desk-top media article churning, their pathetic and in most cases partisan reports about the new Shikota and the ANC stop. Our media need to take a leaf from the American media that left no stone un turned in terms of investigating all the incumbents for the Presidency and Deputy President positions that the Democrats as well as the Republicans were fighting over. It was very interesting to me to see the divisions of the media, when they uncovered that the less-known Sara Palin, incumbent Vice President for the Republicans had unlawfully used the power of her office as a Senator to influence the sacking of a senior county policeman whose sin was to refuse to sack Palin’s brother in law who was estranged from Palin’s younger sister.

While I have no much respect for the USA media, since the embedded journalism campaign of the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, where they chose to be the mouthpiece and basically sing like parrots, utter rubbish statements by Bush and his friends, they, however, did a sterling job in this regard.

In concluding, I feel that Mbeki would have to choose whether to stay in the grave, but before he does that, he must give us the definition of the grave which he claims he would be ruling beyond and come out clean to the world, if he is still a member of the ANC. In every home, all members go out every morning to eke a living for their families, and when one family member would choose not to bring any good to his or her family, then that member ceases to become a full member of the family. Similarly the ANC still believes that Mbeki has a big role to play within the organisation, and somehow he has this notion that he is above the ANC family. He can choose what he wants to do and ignore some parts of the mandate that the ANC deploys him to carry out, If he chooses to continue with the Zimbabwe issue, which he does under the auspices of the ANC, because surely without the support of the ANC in this matter, it would be difficult to separate him from cheese to chalk.

He bemoans the fact that the ANC recalled him before he finished his second term, and he draws a paradox in that now they want him to campaign for it. If this is a true matter of grievance for him, he should also not accept the role that the ANC has assigned to him of being the peace broker in the Zimbabwe sad saga.

We invite comments from the public in how they view the selective response by the former President to the NEC, wherein he is contented with playing in the high stakes, probably, world-awarding projects if he pulls it through against, perhaps the most important job of campaigning for the ANC to win the general elections in a couple of months time. It is well-known that the passage to occupying an important post in the UN is through peace brokering.

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