Mbeki’s remarks on ANC’s current leadership questionable: Analyst

Political analyst Susan Booysen says the former African National Congress (ANC) president Thabo Mbeki wants to be part of a history in which he will see the tide turning against the party’s current president Cyril Ramaphosa.

This after the ANC said it would seek a meeting with Mbeki to ask him to explain a letter he wrote to the current ANC deputy president Paul Mashatile.

Thabo Mbeki’s letter on the Phala Phala matter: Prof. Bheki Mngomezulu

In the leaked letter, Mbeki appears to question the party’s decision to protect Ramaphosa at all cost on Phala Phala saga.

Booysen says Mbeki has the motivation to help the ANC but the way he’s doing it is raising a lot of questions.

“Really plays in the hands of opposition parties in South Africa. Mbeki is particularly rich in his judgment that Ramaphosa alienates the ANC from the masses. I believe it’s true.

But Mbeki himself is the master of alienation throughout the ANC, from the masses. So, I think there are personal motivations that are definitely combined with the party political ones and him acting out the role he sees for himself as vanguard of the ANC.”