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Etienne Creux<\/p>\n
Motlanthe<\/p>\n
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DEPUTY President Kgalema Motlanthe has come as close as he is likely to show willingness to challenge President Jacob Zuma for the ANC leadership at Mangaung before the party\u2019s nominations process formally closes at the end of the month. <\/p>\n
Speaking at the ANC Youth League\u2019s 68th anniversary rally at Mbizana in the Eastern Cape on Saturday, Motlanthe made it clear he would not accept any back-room deal, or be part of a slate of preferred names for the top six. <\/p>\n
By stressing that ANC members should be able to exercise their own free will in choosing their leaders, he implicitly invited them to nominate him. <\/p>\n
Speaking on the sidelines of a South African Medical Association function in Durban on Saturday night, Motlanthe said there was \u201cno basis to go out and campaign\u201d. <\/p>\n
He said leaders were elected to serve in their positions until the ANC gathered at Mangaung on December 16, and there was no need to canvass for support to stay in a position. <\/p>\n
There have been intense behind-the-scenes efforts, largely driven by the ANC in Zuma\u2019s stronghold of KwaZulu-Natal, to persuade Motlanthe to agree to accept nomination as Zuma\u2019s deputy \u2013 but on the basis that he reject nomination for any other position. <\/p>\n
But on Saturday night he told The Mercury he had made his long-held opposition to slates clear \u201cas far back as Polokwane\u201d. <\/p>\n
At the rally earlier, Motlanthe made his rejection of any deal clear by stressing the right of ordinary members of the ANC to be allowed, through the branches of the party, to nominate their own choices for leadership. <\/p>\n
Slates \u2013 and agreeing to be part of them \u2013 stripped ANC members of their right to choose and resulted in weaker leaders, he told the crowd. <\/p>\n
This was because after their election they were beholden to the conditions set by the compilers of the slates, rather than to the organisation\u2019s members as a whole. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday in the ANC, we take away the right of members to elect leadership because today we come with slates and we say to members: \u2018This is the slate, and you must elect according to the slate,\u2019\u201d he was reported as saying. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we do that, we are taking away the right of members to elect leaders of the ANC. Now, by taking that right away, our leaders would be weaker. <\/p>\n
A place on a slate implied support would be conditional, Motlanthe said. <\/p>\n
On the other hand, if ANC members expressed their will freely, \u201cthen you can stand before them and say: \u2018I am not your servant \u2013 you elected me.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
Motlanthe cited the late ANC president Oliver Tambo as being someone who understood the ANC\u2019s democratic processes, because he served as acting president while holding the organisation together during its difficult years in exile. <\/p>\n
This was because normal intra-party elections were impossible owing to the numbers of leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu, who were banned or in jail. <\/p>\n
Motlanthe went on to make the point \u2013 to loud applause \u2013 that \u201cyou never know someone well until they are in power\u201d. <\/p>\n
The rally, long planned, was postponed for a week after Zuma accepted an invitation from the ANC\u2019s Eastern Cape leadership and Motlanthe deferred on the basis of not wanting to be seen to be competing with the president. <\/p>\n
Those present at the rally included party luminaries who are seen as key players in the push for leadership change come December, including ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa, Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale and Western Cape secretary Songezo Mjongile. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Etienne Creux Motlanthe DEPUTY President Kgalema Motlanthe has come as close as he is likely to show willingness to challenge President Jacob Zuma for the ANC leadership at Mangaung before the party\u2019s nominations process formally closes at the end of the month. Speaking at the ANC Youth League\u2019s 68th anniversary rally at Mbizana in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-16432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}