South Africa ANC at brink of split
Supporters of former President Thabo Mbeki and backers of ruling party leader Jacob Zuma square off in acrimonious discord.
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — The fact that the ruling African National Congress has a deep-seated sense of moral superiority is not entirely surprising. Led by Nelson Mandela, it was at the forefront of the campaign to bring down the apartheid system.
Sometimes, its sense of itself can be a little over the top. Party leader Jacob Zuma has been quoted as saying it's the only party that God wants to rule South Africa. The ANC will rule "until Jesus comes back," he said. The worst possible epithet one party member can use against another is to accuse him or her of "un-ANC" behavior.
But the ugly public wrangling that has followed former South African President Thabo Mbeki's humiliating dismissal two weeks ago has made the ANC look like, well, just any other political party. A bitter public spat between rival camps exploded onto the front pages of South African newspapers Friday, when one party member rebuked another for charging that the party had become a threat to democracy.
The acrimony has brought the ANC, formed in 1912 to improve the lives of South African blacks, to the brink of a split between factions supporting Mbeki and Zuma, whose supporters forced the president to step down just a few months before his term was to expire.
"Comrade vs. comrade" ran the front page banner headline in Friday's daily Star newspaper, running the texts of two acrimonious open letters by ANC heavyweights.
One, from Mbeki ally and former Defense Minister Mosiuoa Lekota to ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe, a Zuma supporter, said the new party leaders had undermined the party's policies, culture, values, history and commitment to the people.
"This state of affairs leaves me and many other comrades no doubt, with a clear sense that our membership of the organization is an endorsement of practices that are dangerous to the democracy that many people in our country struggled to bring into being," Lekota said.
Even though he was careful to avoid speaking of a split in the party, analysts regarded his letter as a move to expose a potential division.
Transport Minister Jeff Radebe said in response that Lekota's letter amounted to notice that he and his allies were planning to leave the ANC.
"To you and all your cronies, we at the ANC say that what you are trying to demonstrate to the country is nothing but the last kicks of a dying horse," Radebe said in his own letter.
