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Mbeki-Zuma battle continues
23/12/2007 14:30 - (SA)
Cape Town - The battle between President Thabo Mbeki and newly elected ANC President Jacob Zuma is far from over, if perceptions relayed in the Sunday newspapers are anything to go by.
Most cited Mbeki's appointment on Friday of the new SABC board as the start of this.
The Sunday Independent also cited Zuma's statement that he would review the policy of inflation targeting, which was vital to Mbeki's economic policy and which had necessitated raising interest rates.
In an editorial, City Press said the delegates at the ANC's national conference at Polokwane last week chose Zuma and "that is the future".
Since the
n, Zuma and Mbeki had been at pains to proclaim they were friends.
"Who do they think they are fooling?" City Press asked.
40% of ANC members find Zuma objectionable
"The two men can't stand each other right now, but the future of this country demands that they work together."
Mbeki had to rule the country while Zuma waited in the wings, "straining at the leash and marking time".
City Press raised the possibility that Mbeki would see the outcome at Polokwane as representing the fact that 40% of ANC members found what Zuma stood for objectionable.
He might see this as the basis to mobilise the organisation "to return to the ethos he believes the ANC has always represented".
"What this means is that while mouthing slogans of unity, his group will remain intact and mobilise," the newspaper said.
The Sunday Times reported Mbeki's "camp" was preparing for a new battle with Zuma's supporters, whom they accused of threatening to give Mbeki's government a rough ride in 2008.
At the same time, the Zuma "camp" was also planning ways to curb Mbeki's power and prevent him from "undermining" the new party leadership.
"The Sunday Times has learnt that behind the facade of unity being displayed by the two camps in the wake of Zuma's landslide victory over Mbeki in Polokwane this week, both sides are planning for renewed turf wars in 2008," the newspaper reported.
Fighting the war within government
Quoting unnamed sources, it said the biggest threat the Zuma camp faced "is the space that Mbeki still commands in government".
"Thabo would use whatever means to fight back. That is the problem we have on our hands," an influential Zuma supporter told the Sunday Times.
An unnamed Mbeki ally was quoted as saying "all is not lost".
"We are regrouping to win the battle that lies ahead".
An also unnamed top aide to Mbeki had revealed that the Mbeki camp's first option was going to be "fighting the war within government".
Cabinet would push through "programmes that will make it difficult for those who are hungry for power to change things easily.
"We are going to push several pieces of legislation and if they are resisted, then the public will have to intervene."
The second option, according to the Mbeki camp, was to "wait and see how Zuma manages the transition".
The third option was to "let things stand, but launch a campaign that will see Mbeki return to power with [newly elected ANC Deputy President] Kgalema [Motlanthe] as his deputy".
But, a Zuma ally and ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Ebrahim Ebrahim, said the new NEC would meet in January to analyse the outcome of the conference and discuss the "process of healing and unity".
The Sunday Times was scathing in an editorial about Zuma.
"The democratic spirit we applaud delivered a democratic result that appals.
Zuma 'a moral and intellectual midget'
"Zuma, the ANC's fallible new president, has demonstrated his corruptibility in a series of personal arrangements with inappropriate sponsors," it said.
"He presided over and must take responsibility for a campaign to pack the ANC's NEC with economic illiterates and known cheats."
Even though Mbeki was the architect of his own demise, it must have strained every fibre of his loyalty to his values to accept defeat by Zuma, a "moral and intellectual midget who threatens to implode the fragile successes of the new South Africa in a blast of misguided opportunism", the newspaper said.
- SAPA
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