The ANC Veterans League in the North West has called for Luthuli House to act against party secretary-general Ace Magashule at the national executive committee (NEC) meeting next weekend.
In a statement on Thursday, League provincial secretary Martin Sebakwane said Magashule’s recent comments that only ANC branches would recall him were in defiance of the party.
Magashule was speaking outside the Bloemfontein Magistrates’ Court two weeks ago, when he appeared on charges of fraud, corruption and money laundering. Since then his detractors have called for him to step aside from his position.
Read: Ace Magashule and his men declare war
Sebakwane said the next NEC meeting should “deal with the matter appropriately”.
“We also call upon the integrity committee to summon the secretary-general to appear before it for bringing the organisation into disrepute,” he said. “He conveniently forgets that, at the 54th conference, ANC branches resolved that those implicated in corruption must step aside.
“This is in stark defiance of the NEC position of ‘step aside’ when you are accused of corruption,” Sebakwane said.
He said the radical economic transformation (RET) faction in the ANC, which supported both Magashule and former president Jacob Zuma, was a threat to the party’s integrity and must be “dismembered from the ANC speedily before their cancer spreads to the whole body of the organisation”.
He cited as an example the gathering outside the court in Bloemfontein, that was attended by NEC members, MPs, uMkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association members, mayors and councillors. Some of the protesters burnt T-Shirts bearing the face of President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“They shouted platitudes and rhetoric of hollow unity of the ANC which they are themselves undermining. They broke every rule in the book of the ANC, including burning a T-shirt bearing the face of the ANC president,” Sebakwane said.
Read: The battle to remove Magashule starts
He said Magashule’s other unfortunate public comment was that without former North West premier Supra Mahumapelo there would be no ANC in the province. He added that it was a declaration of war against ANC unity in the province.
“We have to remind the secretary-general that Mahumapelo, whom he so much admires, is the master of ANC divisions in the province. The ANC as an organisation as well as the ANC-led government collapsed under the stewardship of his hero,” he said.
He said that under Mahumapelo the provincial government was placed under administration by the national government, all municipalities were dysfunctional and residents of the province suffered dismal service delivery.
Sebakwane said the veterans league would mobilise ANC and alliance members in the province against Magashule.
“In view of this strategic challenge that requires maximum organisational and political discipline, we urge ANC members, the entire congress movement and the people of the North West to reject, with the contempt they deserve, the utterances of the ANC secretary-general that seek to individualise and factionalise the ANC in the North West.”
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