Publication: Business Day Issued: Date: 2007-11-02 Reporter: Wyndham Hartley

Frontrunners in ANC Race 'Unsuitable'

 

Publication 

Business Day
Date 2007-11-02
Reporter Wyndham Hartley

Web Link

www.businessday.co.za

 

Cape Town ­ Neither President Thabo Mbeki nor Jacob Zuma had the moral authority to lead the African National Congress (ANC) or the country, former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein said yesterday.

Feinstein, back in SA from London to launch a book about his experiences in the ANC, was forced to resign as an MP and leave the ANC as a result of his attempts to investigate corruption in the R50bn arms deal.

He was then the head of the ANC's study group on public accounts and on the watchdog public accounts committee.

Addressing the Cape Town Press Club, he launched a stinging attack on both Mbeki and ANC deputy president Zuma, clear frontrunners in the race to win the leadership of the ANC at its conference next month.

"The frontrunners have not displayed the requisite moral leadership to lead the ANC or the country," Feinstein said. Mbeki's leadership of the ANC had, he said, fundamentally changed the values of the ANC which he had so revered, and this was a tragedy.

Mbeki's position on the HIV/ AIDS pandemic, which had seen tens of thousands of lives lost, was unforgivable. Mbeki had also, in handling allegations relating to the arms deal, undermined the institutions of SA's democracy ­ most notably Parliament.

Also, Mbeki's support for Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and national police commissioner Jackie Selebi was "inexplicable," he said.

He had undermined the culture of the ANC, Feinstein said. Under his watch the party had divided into factions interested only in power and patronage.

He also reminded his listeners of Zuma's relations with convicted swindler Schabir Shaik, and opinions voiced in his rape trial.

For the sake of SA, someone untainted had to be found to take over the reins of leadership, and there were many good people in the ANC who could do it, he said.

When asked who he thought should be leader, Feinstein said it was not his place to name a preferred candidate but Cyril Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale or Kgalema Motlanthe could do the job.

On the arms deal, Feinstein said British and German probes of alleged corruption had identified more than R600m in bribes paid by three of the successful bidding firms. He said he was avoiding calling the payments commissions, as was the norm in the arms trading community.

The cases against the former head of procurement in the arms deal, Chippy Shaik, and the former special adviser to then defence minister Joe Modise, Fana Hlongwane, were "open and shut", he said, and information against them had been made available to SA's authorities ­ "I have no idea why no action has been taken." *1

He said an enormous amount had gone right in the new SA, but some things had gone terribly wrong, and patriotic people had a responsibility to be critical *2.

With acknowledgements to Wyndham Hartley and Business Day.


*1       Why is this so, Mr President?

Is it because it will implicate You?

Your buddies?

Your party?


*2      Patriotic people had a responsibility *3 to be critical.


*3       A right and an obligation.