ANC bullies vote on new SABC board nominations

ANC headquarters this week ordered the party’s MPs to accept a list of new SABC board appointees.

The dramatic development came after angry ANC MPs refused to endorse a list of names forwarded to them by ANC deputy secretary-general Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele.

The inclusion by ANC headquarters of controversial lawyer Christine Qunta and businesswoman Gloria Serobe on the final list of those recommended as new SABC board members sparked a revolt during the ANC parliamentary caucus meeting.

But, despite their spirited objections, they were ordered by Defence Minister Mosiuoa Terror Lekota to adopt the list on Thursday.

Lekota did so after he apparently received instructions by telephone to force through the adoption of the list .

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Lekota did so after he apparently received instructions by telephone to force through the adoption of the list .

It is not known who called Lekota .

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Serobe, executive director of the Wiphold investment company, was nominated by Louis du Plooy in a fax sent from Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad’s office at the Union Buildings on August 2.

Du Plooy is Pahad’s spokesman and chief director for ministerial services .

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Qunta and Serobe had been rejected by the ANC-dominated parliamentary portfolio committee on communications before the intervention of ANC headquarters this week.

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Those who pride themselves on pointing out how SA is nothing like our northern neighbour should consider that the citizens of Zimbabwe did not wake up one day to find themselves robbed of their freedom and rights. The degeneration we see was decades in the making and started the day good people looked the other way. Political analyst Steven Friedman correctly says that a dictatorship is not characterised only by mass imprisonment and the imposition of draconian laws. He says it starts when the powers that be refuse to listen.

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