ANC National Chairperson Gwede Mantashe has warned against what he calls an attack targeted at the party President Cyril Ramaphosa in the form of open letters. He was addressing an Eastern Cape virtual lecture on organisational renewal post COVID-19 on Thursday afternoon.
He says it is obvious that there is a counter-revolution seeking to destroy the pillars of the party and that must stop.
Mantashe has called on all ANC structures to weigh their support for Ramaphosa.
Recently, former ANC President Jacob Zuma wrote an open letter to Ramaphosa, labelling him a weak leader who doesn’t have what it takes to lead the party to the right direction.
Reaction to Jacob Zuma’s open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa:
Mantashe says that is unacceptable.
“I describe it as a choreographed act on the president. When you find someone in PE writing an open letter and attacking the president and another somebody north of KZN writing a letter and another from somewhere; all of them attacking this president, it appears a mass movement attacking the president. The reality of the matter is to weaken the pillars of the movement, including the president being one of those pillars.”
Jacob Zuma’s open letter
In August, Ramaphosa wrote a letter to all ANC party members, calling for an end to corruption in government.
However, Zuma, hitting back at Ramaphosa, said the letter is fundamentally flawed in many aspects. He claimed in his own open letter that Ramaphosa does not have a basic understanding of how to be a legitimate leader of the ANC and how to communicate with party members.
He further added that under Ramaphosa, there is only a lip-service to the 54th national conference of the ANC such as nationalisation of the Reserve Bank, land expropriation and radical economic transformation.
He called for action from the current ANC leadership.
Analysis on Jacob Zuma’s open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa:
