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ANC MP Buti Manamela has lashed out at former president FW de Klerk, who warned that the country was at a risk of losing everything it had achieved due to “the Polokwane coup”.
Manamela, who is also the deputy minister in the presidency responsible for youth development, was closing the debate on the presidency budget vote in the National Assembly last night when he responded to statements made by De Klerk in the Cape Winelands last week.
De Klerk said South Africa had reached a crossroads where the 1994 miracle with which the country had inspired the world was being undone by a national leadership led astray by a powerful communist clique that had grabbed the levers of power after Polokwane.
“Last week, De Klerk unleashed yet another of his many diatribes whose intention is to inject life into a dying political career and battle for relevance,” said Manamela.
“This time, he accused Zulus, working together with communists, to have orchestrated a coup in Polokwane and got President Jacob Zuma elected as president of the ANC in 2007 and subsequently of the republic in 2009.
“Well, we have news for Mr de Klerk. President Zuma is one of the only four presidents who were elected by all South Africans, and next to him you are a minion as the last president who was elected by a minority,” he said.
Manamela criticised De Klerk for calling 1994 “a successful political transition” and said that many lives, including that of Chris Hani, were lost in that period and some of which, “with or without your knowledge, were supervised by your state security machinery whose aim was to plunge us into a civil war”.
Manamela said De Klerk did not do South Africans a favour by agreeing to unban the ANC, the South African Communist Party and other political parties and also agreeing to release Nelson Mandela and initiate negotiations.
“In fact, you could not press over the hot lid of a boiling pot that was yearning for democracy.
“Your hand was forced to act and your conscience could not sustain the atrocities meted out by your system,” he said.
Manamela said the ANC did De Klerk a favour by agreeing to negotiate, to suspend the armed struggle, to quell the anger of the people when they wanted to avenge the death of Hani, and instead let him [De Klerk] share the limelight with Mandela by jointly receiving the Nobel peace prize and giving him power in the government of national unity.
“You accuse us of wanting to give more land to black people, and, yes we will.
“You accuse us of wanting to empower more black people economically ... yes we will!”
Manamela called on De Klerk to “let it go”.
“Because it is about time we finally clean up your mess, and that of your predecessors.
“You have to let your political soul rest in peace and give space to your lackeys who are still hopeful that what you could not save for the minority in the negotiations could be won back from the benches of the opposition here in Parliament,” he concluded.
