You've failed, W Cape ANC told

2009-10-19 07:27

Cape Town - You have failed in the Western Cape, ANC  leader Jacob Zuma told members of the party's provincial general council at a meeting in Cape Town on Sunday.

"Comrades in the Western Cape have failed over the period, and no-one can argue that you have not," he told the council members, who had gathered from branches across the province to thrash out a way forward following their defeat at the polls in April this year.

Zuma said this failure was the reason the national ANC had appointed a team "in a very deliberate manner" to manage the province.

Its members were not there as friends, but to solve problems.

"We did not want to have people [on the team] who were friends of others. We wanted a team that must work... This time we want to take the Western Cape out of difficulty."

Zuma said the national ANC was going to spend a lot of time in the province as this process moved ahead.

"Because... we told you... that the way in which you were conducting yourselves, we were running the risk of some result we did not want. We told you two years ago, but you didn't listen," he said.

Turmoil within the ANC in the Western Cape played a major role in the ANC losing the province in the general election earlier this year.
In 2006, the ANC also lost control of Cape Town when DA leader Helen Zille became mayor.

Character assassination, gossip

Zuma pinned the blame for the party's poor performance on what he called "twin" problems.

"We have a problem... this organisation [the ANC] is faced with a new enemy... and this enemy is composed of twins. Twins that are destroying the organisation."

To loud applause from members, he said there were people in the ANC who were prepared for the organisation to be destroyed in order for them to occupy certain positions.

Lobbying within the ANC had in some cases stopped being comradely and was now deadly, marked by character assassination and gossip.
"This enemy, the one twin - authority, positions. The [other] twin is money. These two walk together; they are well armed; they are destroying the African National Congress," Zuma warned.

The two were related because "some are looking for a position to put their friends so that they have access to resources," he said to cheers and whistles of approval from his audience.

Zuma said there were people in the organisation "who have surrendered themselves to the comrades of other comrades... who work 24 hours for certain comrades, not for the ANC.

"I think you have a problem which you must deal with... I hope I'm wrong," Zuma said.

Council members at this point started cheering and shouting "You're right!".

ANC national executive member and Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana is currently interim head of the party in the Western Cape.

- SAPA