Publication: Cape Times Issued: Date: 2006-01-31 Reporter: Moshoeshoe Monare Reporter: Sapa Reporter:

ANCYL Hits at SANCO for Mbeki Third Term Pitch

 

Publication 

Cape Times
Date

2006-01-31

Reporter

 Moshoeshoe Monare, Sapa

Web Link

www.capetimes.co.za

 

'Keep good people in office'

Johannesburg: After a brief festive respite, the ANC succession tiff has resurfaced, with its youth league calling for the constitution to be defended against "the anarchists" *1 who seek a third term for President Thabo Mbeki.

The ANC Youth League flayed the party's alliance partner, the SA National Civic Organisation (Sanco), which has called for Mbeki to continue as the country's president when his term ends in 2009. The constitution only allows for a president to serve two terms.

ANCYL president Fikile Mbalula said yesterday: "It is difficult to understand whether this is anarchy or a real issue that warrants debate.

"When we engage with Sanco, we will restate our principled position that we are a constitutional state and this constitution was not imposed on us, it is our own product and we believe in it and will defend it."

He was supported by the league's secretary-general, Sihle Zikalala, who said South Africa should lead the continent by example in ensuring that the "constitution remains important in defending our democracy."

Mbalula said Sanco appeared to be divided on the issue.

Sanco president Mlungisi Hlongwane defended the proposal, saying this was aimed at retaining good people in office and was not specifically aimed at retaining Mbeki in office.

The proposal was contained in a Sanco submission to the African Peer Review Mechanism and was being presented to the organisation's members during road shows, he said.

Hlongwane said people should not be oversensitive about the subject of a third term and that there were laws to prevent presidential abuse of power. Amending the constitution to allow a third term would enable the country to keep good people in that office, and was not intended to benefit Mbeki.

Rwanda had just adopted its own constitution which allowed for two presidential terms of seven years - which amounted to one year short of an equivalent three-year term in South Africa.

"Ten years is too short." Mbeki is on record as saying he does not favour a constitutional amendment to allow a third term.

Meanwhile, the ANCYL also criticised Intelligence Inspector-General Zolile Ngcakani for "lack of impartiality" in his investigation into the so-called hoax e-mails, which saw the succession battle spilling into the state's intelligence and cyberspace terrain.

Ngcakani is probing the origin of the e-mails which were purported to have been written by Mbeki's supporters to discredit former deputy president Jacob Zuma, ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe and others.

Mbalula said Ngcakani had already concluded that the e-mails were a hoax and that he was in the pocket of Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils, instead of accounting to parliament *2. The league requested Motlanthe to ask the ANC to investigate the matter.

"We are not saying and we have never said these e-mails are a hoax, those who have said they are a hoax have said it because of what is at their disposal. What those e-mails suggest is that there are people plotting serious activities to destabilise the country *3 and the ANC *4. So they must be taken seriously and investigated," said Mbalula.

Imtiaz Fazel, chief executive in Ngcakani's office, dismissed the league's claims.

"The constitution requires the inspector-general to carry out his work without fear, favour or bias and we are dictated to by those tenets.

"We carry out our work objectively. Our findings are substantiated by evidence and balance. We set a very high burden of proof for the conclusion we reach."

He said the investigation would be concluded before the end of next month.

The SA Communist Party has also come out against an SA National Civic Organisation proposal for a presidential third term, saying the country is not short of progressive leadership.

The SACP said it would never support a change of the two-terms presidency.

With acknowledgements to Moshoeshoe Monare, Sapa and Cape Times.


*1  It's a beautiful irony : persons who threaten to burn the country if their anointed one does not get the job of the incumbent who has led the country in its most peaceful period in post-settlement history (and, according to the Statistician-General, one of its most prosperous periods in history).

*2  This is rich. When the Arms Deal investigation and Joint Report were polluted by the intervention of the Ministers Committee and their terrorism of The Three Stooges into altering their final Report before submitting it to parliament, their men in SCOPA and other committees actually aided and abetted the Executive in failing to account to parliament.

Did the ANCYL request the Secretary-General to investigate the biggest rip-off in the history of the country and not a little private spat like cyber-defamation.

*3  Sure?

*4  But it's ANC people allegedly writing cyber-nonsense about other ANC people.