PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki scored a major political victory on Friday when the ANC national executive committee (NEC) rejected a report into the origins of the hoax emails and divisions in the party.

The report, compiled by an internal task team comprising ANC stalwarts, contradicted the earlier findings of a government-backed probe into the email saga.

It is also said to indirectly blame Mbeki for the divisions in the ANC and with its alliance partners, the SACP and Cosatu.

The email saga began in 2005 when then director-general of the National Intelligence Agency, Billy Masetlha, claimed to have intercepted communication between senior ANC, state and opposition leaders “plotting” against ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma and secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe.

Although a probe by the Inspector-General of Intelligence (IGI) later found the emails to be a hoax, the ANC insisted on its own investigation.

This was seen as a slap in the face for Mbeki as his cabinet had already accepted the IGI’s findings.

But in a dramatic turn of events this week, most NEC members rejected the report, citing several procedural flaws in the way it was compiled. They described the process as “clumsy” and a “farce”.

Among the issues they complained about was that Masetlha, who is facing criminal charges relating to the saga, sat in on some of the task team’s proceedings and questioned some of the people who testified.

Said an NEC member: “The question many of us were asking was, ‘How can a person at the centre of all of this be the one playing a central role in the investigations?’ His involvement made the whole thing a farce.”

Masetlha, his former NIA cyber-spy Funi Madlala and IT specialist Muzi Kunene are facing charges relating to the saga.

The rejection is seen as a blow for Motlanthe. He did not only believe the emails to be true, but actively campaigned for the task team to be set up.

It also means the report has no status in the ANC. But one member said yesterday that those who supported it might still push for it to be debated by delegates at the national policy conference in June or the national conference in December.

Members of the task team were ANC stalwart Hermanus Loots, known in the ANC as James Stuart, former Umkhonto weSizwe supremo General Gilbert Ramano, Sophie Williams-de Bruin, Denzil Potgieter, Patrick Mtshulwana and Josiah Jele.

Jele later pulled out and wrote to Motlanthe, complaining about Masetlha’s role in the investigations. He refused to sign the final report. Another ANC stalwart who was originally supposed to have been part of the team, Jackie Sedibe, refused to participate.

ANC insiders said the report rejected the IGI’s findings and called for a judicial commission of inquiry with powers to subpoena witnesses. This call was rejected by most NEC members who said they saw “no point” in setting up another investigation process when it was supposed to have been the work of the task team.

The report also says it cannot conclusively rule whether the emails were genuine.

But it was the second part of the report, dealing with the political divisions in the ANC alliance, that many of Mbeki’s detractors were hoping to have adopted.

This did not succeed as most NEC members said it told them “nothing new”.

It was supposed to deal with the origins of the political tensions that have dominated the ANC alliance over the past 12 years.

Many who testified before Stuart’s task team are said to have blamed the divisions on Mbeki’s leadership style. NEC members such as ANC Youth League president Fikile Mbalula and SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande are said to have pushed for a “compromise” that would have seen the acceptance of some aspects of the report. But the majority were opposed to this.

With acknowledgements to S’Thembiso Msomi and City Press.