ANC won’t make Zuma scapegoat
JOHANNESBURG: Any hopes that Jacob Zuma will step down as ANC leader and state president in the wake of the party’s dismal performance in the municipal elections have been quashed.
It emerged yesterday that Zuma had again emerged unscathed from the ANC’s four-day national executive committee meeting in Irene, Tshwane, which was convened so the party could take stock of the election outcomes.
Almost predictably the NEC announced that it resolved the ANC’s poor showing in the polls was “a collective” matter and that no blame should be apportioned on any individual leader.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said pointing fingers at Zuma was “a wrong narrative” foreign to the ANC culture.
“The NEC unanimously agreed to take collective responsibility for the poor performance of the ANC during the elections, and resolved to take immediate and bold actions to address the weaknesses and shortcomings that led to the decline of our electoral support.”
He emphasised that the issue of Zuma stepping down was not entertained at the NEC meeting. “What we saw doesn’t point fingers. There was no proposal from the floor on the president to step down.”
Although he faced a barrage of questions from the media around Zuma’s questionable leadership style, Mantashe was unperturbed in his stance that fingers shouldn’t be wagged at Zuma alone.
“The question is, should we blame one person for the performance of the ANC? The debate concluded that all of us in the NEC must take responsibility for the poor performance. That is what came out.”
Mantashe said the NEC’s resolution followed “a vigorous, honest, open and thorough assessment of the election outcomes”.
“We talk of collective leadership all the time. That is the collective discussion of collective leadership. If there are issues that contributed to the decline of the organisation at the time, leadership at the time, all of us are responsible.”