Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma. Picture: African News Agency (ANA)
Mashudu Sadike and Ntombi Nkosi
Despite speculation that President Cyril Ramaphosa and his camp are planning to bar Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma from entering the ANC presidential race at the party’s 55th ANC conference, she says she is going nowhere.
Dlamini Zuma, who has massive credentials within the party and is Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister, is seen as a threat to Ramaphosa.
Dlamini Zuma and three other ANC MPs voted with opposition parties on whether the National Assembly should adopt the report which found that Ramaphosa had a case to answer regarding the Phala Phala matter.
Others who refused to toe the ANC line were former North West premier, Supra Mahumapelo, erstwhile mineral resources minister Mosebenzi Zwane and MP Mervyn Dirks.
Although ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe has come out strongly against the four for voting against the party and vowed to report them to the party’s national disciplinary committee, Dlamini Zuma held her ground and defended her stance.
She decried the ANC national executive committee’s (NEC) decision not to let her and 20 other EC members express their views in a meeting held on December 5. She said Mantashe, who was chairing the meeting, imposed the decision to vote against the report, blocking her and a number of others.
“There were a number of people on the list who were to speak. I was one of them. Somehow the chairperson (Mantashe) decided to stop the meeting when there were still more than 20 people to speak. In the ANC, the policy is that you debate matters, you get a chance to speak, you debate and then a decision is taken. It’s an alien practice in the ANC that meetings are stopped in the middle of a debate and a decision is taken when other people have not been given a chance to express themselves,” she said.
Dlamini Zuma said despite her protest after the meeting, the NEC decided to impose its decision on the rest of them. From the ANC, 214 MPs voted to essentially block possible impeachment proceedings against Ramaphosa.
Dlamini Zuma was not fazed by Mantashe’s assertions that he was reporting the group to the disciplinary committee, which could facilitate her suspension from the party. “I will remain a member of the ANC. I don’t know of a rule that says you can’t express your view in Parliament.”
If she was disciplined, she would fight the matter because no one had been disciplined before for not toeing the party line, she said.
Political analyst Professor Sipho Seepe agreed with Dlamini Zuma that the decision to let Ramaphosa escape was imposed on NEC members.
“Nothing will happen to her.
“There would be a revolt. Besides she can challenge whatever disciplinary processes that will be instituted against her,” Seepe said. He added that the NEC mishandled the debate.
“The decision to support Ramaphosa was bulldozed. Contending perspectives were deliberately muzzled. This is what arrogance of numbers does to a group. The current ANC has become a national disgrace.”
Speaking in a television interview, ANC head of presidency Sibongile Besani said close to 50 people spoke at that NEC meeting.
Once they had spoken, the chair (Mantashe) proposed a summary. “There were still other people who have not spoken, like Dlamini Zuma said, but the meeting agreed that a summary should be provided.”
Pretoria News