After months of speculation over his political future, former ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule will announce his next move on Wednesday at a media briefing in Soweto.
JOHANNESBURG – After months of speculation over his political future, former ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule will announce his next move on Wednesday at a media briefing in Soweto.
It was revealed in June that the former Free State premier was set to join the EFF after its leader, Julius Malema, admitted that the Red Berets were courting him.
However, it would seem that the talks failed to yield the desired results, as the big announcement scheduled for the EFF’s 10th anniversary celebrations on July 29 did not materialise .
Magashule, in a social media post on Monday evening, said he would make an announcement on Wednesday.
He was mum about the exact details, only saying he would not be abandoning politics. “I am in politics; I won’t leave politics,” said Magashule.
There has been much speculation around the former ANC secretary-general’s future since he left the ruling party
Magashule was initially asked to step aside from his position in the ANC because of alleged corruption relating to an asbestos tender in the Free State.
His suspension from the ruling party left him in the political wilderness and made it impossible for him to contest any top position in the ANC at the party’s national conference last December.
Magashule was expelled in June this year after being given seven days by the ANC to make representations as to why he should not be booted out, but he failed to make the representations necessary to save him.
The charges were in relation to his refusal to step aside after he was charged over the asbestos case.
He then responded with a retaliatory suspension of ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa from his duties, which further alienated him from his party.
Magashule was elected at the 2017 Nasrec conference to be secretary-general. However, his stint as the ANC SG was cut short by the institution of the step-aside resolution, which was used to remove him from his leadership role at Luthuli House.
He was a close ally of Ramaphosa’s political rival, former president Jacob Zuma, but his suspension led to him being sidelined from the ANC’s conference in December, when Ramaphosa was re-elected as party leader.
