Veterans want Mbalula to be disciplined
2012-10-24 17:03
Durban - Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula should be disciplined by the ANC or resign, the KwaZulu-Natal Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) said on Wednesday.
MKMVA provincial chairperson Themba Mavundla said: "We are saying the president is not a whipping boy. We want him [Mbalula] taken for [a] disciplinary. He is as ill-disciplined as his buddies."
Mavundla, reacting to a report in the Star newspaper earlier this week, said at a press conference in Durban that Mbalula should resign.
"If we allow such acts from members, the ANC will not see another 100 years."
Mbalula was quoted by the newspaper as saying: "I have no time for Zuma. He has caused his own problems. He marries every week."
It also reported that he had rebuffed efforts by Zuma lobbyists to "neutralise" him.
"They came to me and offered me a position to neutralise me," he was reported as saying in The Star.
Mavundla said that if the newspaper had got it wrong, then the ANC should take action against the newspaper.
MKMVA re-affirmed its support for Zuma as the party’s president.
Mavundla said that the organisation had decided at its recent provincial general council that it wanted the ANC’s current treasurer general Mathews Phosa and its current deputy secretary general Thandi Modise to be dropped at Mangaung in favour of KwaZulu-Natal Premier Zweli Mkhize and former ANC spokesperson Jessie Duarte.
He said the MKMVA still wanted Kgalema Motlanthe to be deputy president of the ANC, but that if Motlanthe opted to challenge Zuma for leadership of the party, then it would urge Cyril Ramaphosa to be Zuma’s deputy.
MKMVA provincial secretary Nhlanhla Maphumulo lamented the number of attacks being made against President Jacob Zuma from within the ANC.
He said those who attacked Zuma for the decisions he had made were effectively attacking him for decisions that had been made by the ANC "as a collective".
- SAPA
