Durban - THE ANC in KwaZulu-Natal has distanced itself from Thursday morning’s visit to former president Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla home by eThekwini ANC councillors, claiming not to be privy to who the organisers of the visit are, and under which banner it is being made.
This comes as councillors of the party in the province’s only metropolitan municipality are expected to travel to meet Zuma at his KwaDakwudunuse homestead where he has lived since being released on medical parole in September, following his arrest in July to serve a 15-month jail term.
Earlier this week, Councillor Ntandoyenkosi Khuzwayo of the ANC in eThekwini said the visit was to firstly see Zuma for the first time since his release on medical parole, as councillors had not been able to visit him due to campaign trail commitments before last month’s local government elections.
Khuzwayo said that they would also be seeking to tap into Zuma’s wisdom and guidance as the councillors embarked on their five-year term in eThekwini, and they also wanted to wish him a merry Christmas.
It has been reported that Zuma played a significant role in ensuring that the eThekwini Municipality, which the ANC was in danger of losing to a coalition of the DA, IFP and other smaller parties, returned to the ANC after brokering a deal with Abantu Batho Congress’ Philani Godfrey Mavundla to join forces with the ANC in eThekwini, paving the way for Mxolisi Kaunda to be elected mayor and Mavundla to be his deputy.
When pressed on whether Zuma’s role in securing eThekwini for the ANC was high on the meeting’s agenda, Khuzwayo could only be drawn to say: “We are going to thank Nxamalala for his contribution to the Struggle, past and present.”
However, the visit has not had the approval of either the regional or provincial leadership structures of the party, with ANC KZN spokesperson Nhlakanipho Ntombela yesterday claiming that they would only become aware of which ANC eThekwini councillors had visited Zuma when the rest of the country found out today.
“This hasn’t been organised by the region or the province, so I don’t know how the ANC is expected to comment on this. The ANC always visits Nxamalala, it doesn’t announce to the whole country that it is going to see Nxamalala.
“Even the chief whip of the ANC doesn’t know this, the region of eThekwini as a structure doesn’t know, so we don’t know who they are. We can’t approve something that we don’t know anything about,” Ntombela said.
Political analyst Professor Bheki Mngomezulu, from the University of the Western Cape, said following Zuma’s arrest in July and a period when he felt he had not had enough support from his comrades, this could be a meeting to iron out any differences and show those in full support of Zuma that this new leadership of councillors were not his enemies and that they were prepared to work with him.
However, he said it would have been better if the councillors visiting Zuma had done so with the mandate and support of the provincial leadership, because doing it on their own without the approval of the provincial leadership would cause more problems for the ANC.
“That in itself doesn’t sound good (visiting Zuma without provincial leadership approval) because as much as people can visit the former president in their individual capacity, that is fine, but these are people in a governance structure, and in that case you would expect that they would read from the same script as the provincial leadership.
“The provincial leadership that is currently leading KZN, representing the ANC, are basically the face of the organisation in the province, so even if people go to Nkandla on their own as new councillors, they should have at least touched base with the provincial leadership,” Mngomezulu said.
Political Bureau