Johannesburg - One of President Jacob Zuma’s staunchest supporters, Gauteng ANC provincial executive committee member Panyaza Lesufi, is calling on the ANC to review Julius Malema’s expulsion. He says, while he accepts the ANC national disciplinary committee’s decision, it may have been too “harsh”. Insisting there should be room in the ANC for a “disciplined and diamond-polished Malema”, Lesufi suggests the expelled ANC Youth League president should be brought back into the ruling party’s fold because “the price of going separate ways and staying on opposite sides is too heavy to pay, and has the potential to paralyse the progress we have made since democracy”. Lesufi, who supported Zuma’s re-election in Mangaung, is also Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga’s spokesman. Motshekga, who is president of the ANC Women’s League, is one of Zuma’s closest allies. In an exclusive interview on Saturday, Lesufi urged party elders to convene a “Congress of the Left”, between the ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), to address the “impasse”. He said the two parties’ differences were “factional” and personality-based rather than ideological. While mistakes have been made in the past, says Lesufi, “the ANC still needs a Julius Malema, in so much as a Julius Malema cannot survive ‘outside of the ANC’, an organisation that made him what he is today”. “I am calling on all parties to allow the interests of our people to be above individuals. Other people might say the horse has already bolted, but I refuse (to believe) that it has. We need each other more than ever before.” His call comes less than two years after Luthuli House rejected Malema’s plea, which was backed by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, for a political solution to his case. It also comes against the backdrop of reports that Malema’s EFF party was making inroads in ANC constituencies, especially in Limpopo, North West and Free State. Lesufi, however, denies that his call may be an admission that the ANC is seriously threatened by Malema and the EFF ahead of next year’s general elections. He says while the behaviour of Malema and his EFF comrades was bad, all families have a “problem child”. “With the benefit of hindsight, the expulsion of Julius Malema, however disproportionate it may have been, was too harsh, but it is a decision that I still respect. “The dictates of current balance of forces perhaps, quite paradoxically, leave space for a disciplined and diamond-polished Malema. Unlike Cope, whose members left the ANC, these comrades were expelled, surely a decision that is within our powers to review.” Malema could not be reached for comment on Sunday. His spokesman and EFF policy chief, Floyd Shivambu, said Malema and the EFF would never hold talks with a “right-wing and neo-liberal” ANC. “There will never be any review of our cases. We can’t betray millions of our people who are now supporting EFF because of our personal conveniences and everything else. “There are no ideological similarities between EFF and the ANC. The ANC is a right-wing organisation. “They have got resolutions from the 53rd national congress which are rightwing and reactionary. How are we going to work with an organisation that is neo-liberal?” National ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu refused to comment on Lesufi’s call, saying he could not “glorify” a party member who chose to raise issues in the media. “Why would I glorify him for going to the press and even hinting that internal processes (Malema’s expulsion) were faulty?” asked Mthembu. Lesufi also insisted that bad blood between the ANC and EFF would only benefit neo-liberal and conservative forces because “we recruit from the same constituency”. “In fact, we both are struggling to make a dent on the support base of apartheid beneficiaries when they are seemingly making inroads in our very traditional constituencies.”....ss..EFF....asijiki
Posted on: Tue, 17 Sep 2013 10:39:38 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015