Free-State African National Congress deputy chairperson, Thabo Manyoni has urged supporters of Presidential hopeful Cyril Ramaphosa’s campaign to be strong and support one another until the upcoming December National Elective Conference.
Manyoni was delivering the Oliver Reginald Tambo memorial lecture at Koppies in the Northern Free-State.
The hall was filled to capacity in celebration of the life of Oliver Tambo.
The CR17 campaign is gaining momentum as December month approaches with supporters clad in black and gold t-shirts printed “SIYAVUMA”.
Manyoni says OR Tambo embodied values of the ANC which is now a rare gene to current leadership.
Manyoni says the party first needs internal liberation, “Leaders must understand that they are subjected to the norms and principles of the organisation. The organisation is not subjected to their own wishes and their own personal material gain.”
Manyoni says the ANC is led by people who put their interests first than serving with humility and putting people’s needs before theirs.
He added that Tambo resigned as the ANC’s Acting President during the Morogoro conference in 1969 to save the party from collapsing.
“He left the organisation voluntarily. It is that conference that unanimously voted for his confidence. They said we have confidence in that man let him come back and run this organisation. Today we have men and women even when this organisation is in a crisis they can’t volunteer to resign so that the organisation can cleanse itself.”
Meanwhile, First Deputy President of COSATU James Tyotyo says there’s no best candidate to succeed President Jacob Zuma other than deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa:
“They must remember we want Cyril Ramaphosa to take over as the president of the ANC. He is the only hope for all South African people to restore the dignity of the ANC. That’s the message we gave here.”
Manyoni says going to the national conference will be a way of cleansing and starting over on a clean sheet as the African National Congress.
