The open season of letters by ANC leaders to and about each
other seems far from over.
ANC Veterans' League president Snuki Zikalala has joined
the bandwagon, accusing former ANC president Jacob Zuma of attempting to
instigate a regime change within the ANC after he wrote a letter responding to one addressed to
ANC members by current president Cyril Ramaphosa.
Ramaphosa last week wrote a letter to ANC members calling
on them to desist from engaging in corruption. Zuma took offence and hit back,
saying Ramaphosa just wanted to save his own skin.
Now Zikalala has penned his own letter, saying Zuma wanted
Ramaphosa ousted as ANC leader.
According to Zikalala, Zuma's letter was tantamount to
factionalism as he was drawing a line in the sand to mark a division between
his supporters and Ramaphosa's.
“Its [Zuma's letter] obvious and naked objective is regime
change in the ANC!” wrote Zikalala.
The Zuma letter, argued Zikalala, was marred by falsehoods
and fabrications. Among these, he pointed out, was Zuma's charge that Ramaphosa
had concluded that the whole ANC was a criminal organisation by calling it
“accused number one” in his letter.
“It is clear that this deliberate misrepresentation of what
comrade president Ramaphosa wrote in his letter, falsely accusing him of saying
that all ANC members are corrupt, is a fraudulent attempt to mobilise the
membership of the ANC to repudiate and turn against president Ramaphosa,”
Zikalala argued.
Zikalala believed that Zuma no longer viewed Ramaphosa as
his comrade and a legitimate president of the ANC. This, he argued, was clear
in how Zuma, in his letter to Ramaphosa, constantly used “Mr President” instead
of the usual “comrade president”.
Zikalala also took exception to Zuma accusing Ramaphosa of
seeking validation from white people. He called this a failed “attempt to
delegitimise” Ramaphosa.
In the league's view, Ramaphosa was duly elected at the
party's 2017 Nasrec conference and would be defended against “unconstitutional
regime change agendas” such as the one pursued by Zuma.
Said Zikalala: “We must unite to defeat any attempt at
effecting unconstitutional regime change in terms of the leadership of our
movement.
“As we do this, we must pose and attempt to answer the
question — whose interests would such unconstitutional regime change serve?”
The answer, he said, was simply that Zuma and his faction
were desperately trying to “capture the ANC” via the back door.
Zikalala confirmed the authenticity of the “leaked” letter,
saying it was, however, not the final version as he had sent it to the
veterans' league provincial chairperson “to improve it”.
A refined letter was in the making, he said.
TimesLIVE
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