African National Congress chairperson and Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota has said that "all shall be equal before the law", even when "our own comrades" face arrest.

Without any reference to ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma - who is facing corruption charges - Lekota used an analogy of how he came to understand the meaning of a clause in the ANC's Freedom Charter that said all shall be equal before the law.

Speaking at the congress of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) on Wednesday, Lekota said the reality of this clause came to haunt him when, while he was premier of the Free State, police came to inform him that they were going to arrest one of his comrades.

He said it dawned on him that he was presiding over a government "that arrests my comrades. But I understood what the Freedom Charter meant when it said all shall be equal before the law".

When The Star later asked him the relevance of this analogy, he smiled and said "you could use your own interpretation".

Zuma's criminal charges have caused ructions in the ANC and in the tripartite alliance, splitting each organisation into pro-Zuma or pro-President Thabo Mbeki camps in what had become an ugly, mismanaged ANC presidency succession race.

Lekota said there should be frank and intense debates without reducing differences to personalities or labelling individuals.

"The element of engagement and debate seems to be overly reduced, and in some cases has been lacking. This trend must be reversed. We should not allow exchanges in the media to become substitutes for robust debates... The only way to test new ideas and produce reliable outcomes is to exchange views.

"We must expect that alliance partners may hold different positions, including individuals. That doesn't mean the alliance is divided or is about to die," he said.

With acknowledgements to Moshoeshoe Monare and The Star.