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Supra Mahumapelo
News24 columnist and political analyst Max Du Preez is clearly a man without the analysis necessary to project himself objectively. He is quietly projecting President Cyril Ramaphosa as a weak and solo leader who enjoys no support from the ANC secretary-general, deputy secretary-general or Deputy President David Mabuza.
A bit of education for him will assist in this regard:
1. All members and leaders of the ANC have moved on from Nasrec and are now rather focusing on how to build and renew the ANC for its unity.
2. What is the basis of him concluding that Comrade Ace Magashule is going to be arrested, unless he and fellow nocturnalists are involved in engineering such an agenda?
3. President Ramaphosa works on the principle of collective leadership and leads with the rest of the officials of the national executive committee (NEC) and so far they are doing good work. The entire party has accepted and embraced the New Dawn and we have no anti-Newdawnists in the ANC.
4. The ANC has long buried the demon of ethnicity within its ranks and continues to do everything possible to undermine it. So Max should not try to sow disunity in the ANC based on ethnicity. We are a non-racial revolutionary movement committed to defending all rights of citizens, including Max's right to write his yawning ideas.
5. The ANC collective works for its unity organically and not for the unity of individual leaders. The ANC is on course in leading the revolution towards a National Democratic Society and we fully appreciate that we do this under conditions of neither our choice nor making. It's a protracted struggle.
Furthermore, for Max's information President Ramaphosa and his predecessor President Jacob Zuma work very well together in their different but mutually reinforcing roles.
What we must understand is that the ANC has historically always had its internal political differences, as well as the ongoing capacity to manage these differences. Should the ANC become homogeneous one day, it will mark its ending as a national liberation movement that fought colonialism, apartheid and its manifestations.
Max Du Preez should rather be bold and express what is actually his real view, which is that he wishes to see the demise of the ANC. How else does he arrive at his distorted political value judgement about the president and the ANC secretary-general?
The two leaders he is trying to pigeonhole talk on a regular basis and meet every Monday in the NEC officials' meeting at Luthuli House.
The good political chemistry between the two leaders manifested recently when both of them meticulously worked, and succeeded, to manage the necessary political transition from President Zuma to President Ramaphosa. Give credit where it is due, Max, and show maturity.
Both President Ramaphosa and SG Magashule understand fully that unity of purpose within the movement is something the ANC has been working for since 1912. In fact, the basis of the formation of the ANC, as president Pixley ka Isaka Seme called for just before the SANNC's formation, was UNITY.
These leaders of the ANC have over time fully grasped and internalised the correct theoretical understanding that, unity does not work like coffee creamer. It is protracted and like a road permanently under construction.
Long live the ANC unity.
- Mahumapelo is ANC North West chair and NEC member.
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