Kgalema Motlanthe: A Political Biography by Ebrahim Harvey was launched on Thursday 11 October 2012
a week after the offical nominations for the ANC top 6 leadership positions opened and just two months
before the leadership election in Mangaung,
It is common practice in US politics for candidates to pen a book, or commission one, to give them the life narrative that will position them for the campaign to introduce an appropriate life-story, like Bill Clinton as the Man from Hope, and Barack Obama as the post-racial American.
Motlanthe has remained an enigmatic figure and the book is the first glimpse into the man who was briefly the country's president after the damaging Polokwane conference in 2007 which saw Thabo Mbeki unseated.
His closing remarks at the book launch where that he wanted his tombstone should say: 'Others made suggestions and he
implemented.'"
Well several lobby groups and individuals have declared for Molthathe as their preferred candidate for the ANC president including the ANC Youth League, Limpopo ANC provincial executive committee (PEC), Gauteng provincial executive committee, ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa, Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale, Julius Malame and his ABZ suppoters
With the ANC’s 53rd national conference at Mangaung now mere weeks away and nominations set to be finalised by November 26 2012, Motlanthe’s backers are increasingly showing their hand whilst the man himself Motlanthe continues to give hints as to his availability to lead in the confines of ANC internal democratic process.
So indeed Motlanthe's book launch was not just a book launch but the launch of a very caculated presidential campaign
that follows the laeetr and the spirit of ANC's internal leadership nomination process.
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