“We did not believe former president Thabo Mbeki when he said we are giving the country to the dogs,” ANC Youth League (ANCYL) president Collen Malatji said they are now falling onto the butcher’s knife as a punishment for electing former president Jacob Zuma.
This comes after Zuma announced in December that he will not vote nor campaign for the ANC but instead will vote for the newly formed Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party.
Zuma is now the leader and face of MK Party and will be vying for the presidency, his party announced.
According to Malatji, the ANC should have carefully listened to Mbeki when he said Zuma was not the ideal leader for the party.
“There is no one that knows the Nkandla fellow more than president Thabo Mbeki, he knows him better because he was his deputy. We did not believe him when he said we were giving the country to the dogs. We did not listen but I think this time around we will learn to,” he said.
Malatji addressed the media at the ANC’s headquarters, Luthuli House in Johannesburg on Thursday.
Mbeki, who served as the second democratic president after Nelson Mandela, was removed from his position in 2008 and the following year Zuma was elected president.
He has also been vocal about how Zuma should not be trusted.
“Zuma is showing us flames already, a political party that is not even a year old but is highly funded by forces of regime change, the people that Mbeki told us that they are the enemies of the revolution,” he said.
Malatji described Zuma as a “very disruptive” old man who wanted to treat MK Party as a family party.
“It is clear, even in his party, he fires people, he even fired the founder of the party, he is firing everyone because we know that the party is an inheritance of Duduzile (Zuma’s daughter) and the family, not a party for the people,” he said.
He, however, said the their focus now is on winning the 2024 national and provincial elections on May 29.
Last week, MK Party expelled Jabulani Khumalo, the founder and man who registered the party, as part of “cleansing itself.”
Meanwhile, Zuma has been requested to appear before the ANC’s disciplinary committee on Tuesday for defying the party’s constitution by showing support for another party.
kamogelo.moichela@iol.co.za
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