ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) member and former uMkhonto we sizwe commander Tony Yengeni has labelled calls for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s term as “nonsense” he does not support.
ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) member and former uMkhonto we sizwe commander Tony Yengeni has labelled calls for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s term as “nonsense” he does not support.
Speaking to the Cape Times on Thursday, Yengeni said he has seen no change in Ramphosa’s five years as the party’s president.
“Any leader who seeks a second term to lead the government or the ANC should do so on the basis of having implemented a program to better the lives of our people. In the last five years that has not happened. In fact things have gotten worse. In my own experience, I have never seen the ANC this divided. Again I ask: a second term for what?”
However sources close to Ramaphosa’s second term campaign said they were not surprised, arguing that Yengeni did not support Ramaphosa in 2017 and they did not “expect anything more from him”. Yengeni has been seen as a backer of NEC member and Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.
ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe said Yengeni was aware of organisational platforms to express such views.
“He is a member of the NEC and he is aware of organisational platforms that exist to express himself on such views. Like any other member of the ANC, if he is in a conference, he is welcomed to express his own democratic views on that platform. But if it is matters of the organisation, he is also encouraged to use platforms of the organisation to raise any views he may have. All of us as a collective elected at the 54th national conference, we are expected to provide leadership to the party, so there is no leader who must exonerate themselves from discharging that responsibility,” he said.
Mabe said an ANC elective conference will sit in December and it is then a determination will be made on who will be the next party leader.
Political analyst, Professor Sipho Seepe said Yengeni has been clear for some time about his “unhappiness” with how Ramaphosa has led both the ANC and the country.
“Since taking over as President of the ANC, the party is in bad shape. This is a party that has failed to advance its own conference resolution. If anything, Ramaphosa seems determined to destroy what is left of the liberation movement. In government, he has dismally failed to deliver on any of his promises. We are experiencing the highest unemployment in history. Business confidence is at its lowest. To try to make up for that, he has spent most of his presidency engaged in meaningless public relations exercises.
“The economy has not grown. Since taking over, the country has been subjected to the unending bouts of loadshedding with no reprieve in sight,“ Seepe said.
Cape Times
