‘Premature’ Mbete riles union

NATIONAL Assembly Speaker and apparent presidential hopeful Baleka Mbete has once more been rebuked for seemingly starting a “premature” debate about who should succeed President Jacob Zuma as party leader in 2017.

This time the National Union of Mineworkers, Cosatu’s largest affiliate, is seething after Mbete reportedly told a gathering in Limpopo last month that some ANC MPs were plotting to unseat Zuma before the party’s national general council in September.

Last year, Mbete was crit- icised by the party after she reportedly told the Sowetan she was ready to be president.

NUM president Piet Matosa told the Sunday Times that it was wrong for Mbete to raise the matter publicly.

“If the leadership is aware that there are people who have positioned themselves for leadership positions in 2017 [that’s fine], but we don’t think that it should have been mentioned,” Matosa said. “We don’t think that the timing was correct.”

The union is not a formal structure of the ANC, but it has been influential in determining the outcome of the party’s leadership battles. All the ANC’s post-liberation secretaries-general — Cyril Ramaphosa, Kgalema Motlanthe and the incumbent, Gwede Mantashe — are former NUM leaders.

Matosa said Mbete’s actions could distract the party from preparing for next year’s local government elections.

“Leaders of the ANC don’t declare themselves, they are elected at conference. It is not a correct thing to do,” he said.

Mbete declined to comment on the NUM statement, saying she has yet to read it. “Let’s leave it,” she said.

ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa was not available for comment at the time of going to press.