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ANC has no choice says Mantashe

SA President Jacob Zuma
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African National Congress  (ANC) Chairperson Gwede Mantashe has warned that the party will be forced to subject President Jacob Zuma to the humiliation of a vote of no confidence or even impeachment, if he fails to respect the party’s decision to recall him.

President Zuma has been recalled by the ANC – and is yet to reply to the recall.

Mantashe has also hinted that they have taken a political decision to let President Zuma be removed through a vote of no confidence in Parliament if he doesn’t step down on his own.

Mantashe was addressing dozens of ANC members at Butterworth in the Eastern Cape, as part of the party’s 106th celebrations.

His visit in the rural constituency served as a report back session – as tensions and uncertainty of the recall process drags on.

He has spoken differently to Secretary-general, Ace Magashule in respect of the the no-deadline given to Zuma, and says  they’ve exhausted other strategies of talking Zuma out of his position.

“The ANC must be able to raise that motion about its own, but that decision will be taken when caucus meets. We hoped that the President would see reason and step down on his own.”

“Let me give you four steps we take… the first one is that ideally a deployee should step down himself; two – when the NEC takes a decision that you are recalled, and writes a letter telling you that you are recalled, it is expecting you to write a letter of resignation. If you don’t do that, the next step is to vote you out through the motion of no confidence.”

Mantashe was quick to point out that they will have to submit their own motion of no confidence, rather than support the one by opposition parties.

“When I was Secretary General, there was one theory that I coined… that you don’t allow your troops to be commanded by the commanders of the enemy.”

“I think it’s a good position… you must never allow your MPs to be commanded by the command structure of the opposition. The outcome will be the same, but it should be the outcome of the ANC.”

But he still maintains that they don’t want to embarrass Zuma.

“The worst thing you can do is to go to your deployee and just kick him on the behind and say you must go now.”

Mantashe says they expect a favourable response from President Zuma no later than Wednesday.

Meanwhile – unconfirmed reports emerged late on Tuesday that the President would brief the media on his recall on Wednesday morning, at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.

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