Mbeki 'not hostile to Zuma'
2005-11-25 15:42
Cape Town - President Thabo Mbeki has categorically rejected any suggestion he has a "hostile or malicious attitude" towards former deputy president Jacob Zuma.
In his weekly letter on the ANC's website, ANC Today, on Friday, Mbeki set out the background of last weekend's ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting.
He said the ANC national general council's (NGC) decision at its June 30 meeting not to accept Zuma's request to suspend his leadership functions as ANC deputy president pending the outcome of his forthcoming criminal trial, had been wrongly interpreted as a defeat for the elected leadership of the movement.
"This leadership - the NEC, and the national working committee (NWC) - is alleged to have decided to remove the deputy president from his elected positions (in the ANC), which neither did.
"The supposed defeat of the NEC by the NGC delegates is then presented as a demonstration of the mass popularity of the deputy president," Mbeki said.
The notion that the ANC membership was engaged in a mass revolt against the leadership collective, including the president, was reinforced by pictures of individuals burning official ANC T-shirts bearing Mbeki's portrait.
This happened against the backdrop of demonstrations organised to express support for Zuma in the context of his court case, as decided both by the NEC and the NGC.
"In this regard, some members of our movement put forward the demand, 'Zuma for President', which was interpreted as a revolt against a perceived abandonment of the deputy president, and support for the latter, in opposition to the president," he said.
Mbeki quoted from his concluding speech at the NGC meeting, when he said the NGC had correctly expressed its support for Zuma "during these trying and painful times".
He also quoted from his address to the national assembly announcing Zuma's dismissal as the country's deputy president on June 14 when he lauded Zuma and said he personally continued to hold him in high regard.
"By no stretch of imagination could these statements be read as expressing a hostile or malicious attitude towards the deputy president," Mbeki said.
- SAPA