Publication: The Star
Issued:
Date: 2005-06-14
Reporter:
Reporter:
Reporter:
Mbeki's
tough decision won't divide ANC, party insists
Deputy President
Jacob Zuma has been shown the door by President Thabo Mbeki.
In a
dramatic day in Johannesburg, the president yesterday axed the man he appointed
as his second-in-command in 1999 and again in 2004.
Today, Mbeki was to
take parliament and the nation into his confidence and explain why Zuma was
pushed out of office. This follows Judge Hilary Squires'
ruling that Zuma and Schabir Shaik had a "generally corrupt
relationship".
Zuma's axing means he will not reply to questions
in the National Council of Provinces as scheduled.
The decision to fire
him followed a meeting of the ANC's extended national working committee at its
headquarters at Luthuli House in Johannesburg yesterday. This had followed
Mbeki's consultations with senior party leaders, including those in the
provinces.
Zuma declined to resign last week, forcing the president to
fire him. In terms of the constitution, the president has the prerogative to
dismiss members of the cabinet.
It is not the first time that a
democratic president has moved against members of his executive, but Zuma is
certainly the most senior member of government to go.
In 1995, then
president Nelson Mandela fired his estranged wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, as
deputy arts and culture minister, and a year later, Bantu Holomisa lost his job
as deputy environment minister in a "cabinet reshuffle".
It was followed
by an ANC disciplinary process where Holomisa was accused of bringing the ANC
into disrepute after alleging that a cabinet colleague, Stella Sigcau, was
guilty of corruption while she was a homeland leader.
Zuma's firing was
confirmed by senior government officials yesterday.
It is expected that
Zuma will be replaced by ANC national chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota, although
Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has also been mentioned. Zuma's
axing may also involve a cabinet shuffle.
Senior ANC insiders said Mbeki
had little choice but to act firmly following the damning judgment in the trial
of Shaik, Zuma's financial adviser. They conceded, however, that the deputy
president's strong support base in the ruling party and its tripartite alliance
partners made the president's decision a difficult one.
"I don't think
the president has any option but to fire Zuma," one senior ANC source
said.
"Zuma has been undermining the president with his campaign to shore
up support for himself, and after his refusal to resign, the president really
has little choice in the matter," said the source.
Another senior ANC
member said Mbeki's decision would have significant implications for the party,
but pointed out that it had "funny ways" of
overcoming the most difficult of situations.
Mbeki and Zuma came face to
face at Luthuli House yesterday after a week of intense campaigning by the
deputy president in the rural Eastern Cape and KwaZulu Natal, and among party
supporters.
They met during a routine meeting of the ANC's top six
officials, which included Lekota, secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe, deputy
secretary-general Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele and treasurer Mendi
Msimang.
While Mbeki was at Luthuli House, Motlanthe said there would be
an extraordinary meeting of the party's national working committee at the
president's Cape Town residence, at which Mbeki was expected to tell the party's
leadership about the announcement he was to make in parliament this
afternoon.
Also invited to the meeting were the secretaries-general of
all ANC provincial structures, as well as those of alliance partners Cosatu and
the SA Communist Party.
Immediately after yesterday's meeting, ANC
spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama issued a lengthy statement berating the media and
singling out "a handful of voices within the ANC and its alliance partners" who
had mischievously fed journalists with reports that the party and the alliance
were faltering in the wake of the Shaik judgment.
Ngonyama said: "The ANC
is not - and cannot be - divided over the outcome of the Schabir Shaik
trial."With acknowledgements to The Star.
The Star has their sources - some of the detail of this
article may be premature.