27/08/2005 21:16 - (SA)
Mbeki declares war
S'THEMBISO MSOMI,
JIMMY SEEPE and
MPUMELELO MKHABELA
PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki has thrown down the gauntlet and dared his troubled former deputy Jacob Zuma and his supporters to prove their claims, that the ANC's number two is a victim of a political conspiracy, or shut up.
In what one political analyst has described as "vintage Mbeki", the president upped the stakes in the ongoing political fallout within the ANC and its alliance partners this week.
He publicly called for the formation of a Commission of Inquiry to probe allegations that he and other members of the ANC were involved in a conspiracy "targeted at marginalising or destroying" Zuma.
And while Mbeki does not refer to Zuma by name in the list of those who have made allegations of a political plot, the challenge to the alliance partners is as much to Zuma too to prove the theory he has spoken of in numerous speeches and interviews.
The Congress of SA Trade Unions, the SA Communist Party and the ANC Youth League - who have all publicly claimed the existence of a conspiracy - were by yesterday still unsure whether they would support such a commission.
And this was because, according to political analyst Aubrey Matshiqi, they were now in a corner. If they accept the commission they may not be able to prove their allegations, but if they refuse, they would look like they did not have proof to start with.
Mbeki's call, and the fact that he made it public via his weekly online column before it was discussed by the ANC and its partners, has further deepened what was already the biggest political crisis to hit the party in its 93-years of existence.
In the letter, which was initially submitted to ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe for discussion by the 10-aside alliance meeting on Wednesday, Mbeki quotes a number of statements made by Cosatu, the SACP and the ANC Youth League suggesting that Zuma's upcoming trial on charges of corruption was a political ploy to prevent the ANC deputy president from becoming the country's next president.
Zuma himself, in recent weeks, has made a number of remarks that suggest that a plot exist.
But now Mbeki wants all of them to present their evidence before a commission.
"I am informed that some within our broad movement, who believe that deputy president Zuma is a victim of a counter-revolutionary, capitalist and neo-liberal offensive, are convinced that as president of the ANC and the republic, I occupy the leading position in the political onslaught against the deputy president," Mbeki said.
A number of ANC alliance members yesterday said they were still "shocked" and warned that Mbeki's "angry" response to the Zuma debacle could plunge the alliance into further divisions.
But others say it was about time Mbeki took a firm stand as these allegations of a conspiracy against Zuma were now threatening the unity of the ANC and "intefering with" the functioning of government.
"It is precisely because of these irresponsible utterances by the likes of Cosatu that you see people booing the country's deputy president (Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka). This thing is unheard of in the congress tradition. The president is giving them the opportunity to present the country with evidence," said an NEC member.
South African National Civic Organisation president Mlungisi Hlongwane said the commission was necessary because: "There have been deep seated differences which were amounting to a crisis in the alliance based on the conspiracy theory that the president personally and some other individuals are involved in charecter assassination of JZ."
"We cannot allow the public to harbour suspicision which in itself could destroy the credibility and authority of someone such as the president. We therefore have to subject the suspicions to an independent authority. We need to put the matter to rest through a credible source."
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