ANC women: We're not feminists

2012-11-27 18:15

Angie Motshekga (Picture: Sapa)

Carien du Plessis, City Press

Johannesburg - ANC Women's League president Angie Motshekga has denied that the women’s league was a "feminist organisation" who was "hostile" to male leaders.

Motshekga this afternoon announced that the women's league at its meeting on Monday nominated President Jacob Zuma for a second term, and businessperson Cyril Ramaphosa as his deputy.

Both Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and Zuma were initially nominated for president but after a ballot, Zuma won the presidential nomination.

Motshekga gave the assurance to journalists attending the league's briefing at Luthuli House today that the league would ensure a female president "in your lifetimes" but she stated the "material conditions" in the ANC were not right for that at the moment.

"You have to ensure that if you nominate a woman president, you take the organisation [ANC] with you," she said.

Motshekga said Zuma had done a lot for women and advanced policies in favour of women.

Asked about whether his polygamy was not against the advancement of women, Motshekga said practising his culture was a "personal choice".

She said the women Zuma married were consenting adults, and he was not harming anyone.

The league nominated ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe and chairperson Baleka Mbete for a second term, and former party spokesperson Jessie Duarte as deputy secretary general and KwaZulu-Natal Premier Zweli Mkhize as treasurer general.

About 60% of the league's nominations for the 86 members of the party’s national executive committee are women, Motshekga said.

She denied that the league supported Zuma because he didn’t fire her as education minister following the Limpopo textbook saga.

"That will be cheapening the relationship, it is much bigger than that," she said, adding that the league supported Zuma in 2007 even before she was education minister.

- City Press