Zuma threatens those who leave the party with the wrath of the ancestors
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma has warned disgruntled ANC members, who leave the party when things do not go their way, that they would attract the “wrath of the ancestors”.
Unveiling the party’s provincial manifesto at the Idutywa Stadium yesterday, Zuma said: “It is wrong to leave the ANC. In fact, it is cold and rough outside the ANC.
“People must remain in the party and try to fix things because those who leave will attract the wrath of the ancestors who will bring that person bad luck.”
He also said the party was determined to root out tender corruption, address medicine prices and resolve the land issue.
Zuma said this as the ruling party welcomed back more than 100 members who had defected from the United Democratic Movement (UDM) and the Congress of the People (COPE).
Among them were former COPE MPL Nkosinathi Kuluta and the party’s former provincial communications head Nkosifikile Gqomo, who both left the party after its 2008 elective conference in Polokwane.
Zuma also touched on issues such as fighting corruption, which he said was one of the party and government’s biggest enemies. He said, in a bid to fight and eliminate corruption in government, the ANC was in the process of doing away with the tendering process.
“These tenders are the root of corruption. They have messed up our country. We are aiming at centralising the tendering process through what we call the central tender board,” Zuma said.
He then urged those in the ANC and government who had been implicated in corruption “to do the right thing and resign before we do something about you”.
He told the packed stadium with some 35 000 people that the ruling party would make it a priority to fight high medication prices “from pharmaceutical [companies] who only care about profit and neglect poor people’s lives”.
He said many people around the country, especially in rural areas, were denied access to decent health care because of high prices by pharmaceutical companies.
The party’s election manifesto was coherent, realistic and achievable, he said to loud cheers.
He also told supporters that government was “fighting tooth and nail” to address the land issue, which he said was still in the hands of the select few and not to the benefit of the majority of indigents.
“All our problems like poverty and underdevelopment are a result of the 1913 Land Act and, as the ANC, we will never stop pursuing the issue of land until it is fully brought back to its rightful owners,” Zuma said.
Both Gqomo and Kuluta yesterday said they had made the “very tough decision” to leave COPE and rejoin the ANC after realising that there was no other political home that could advance their revolutionary interests.
Gqomo said: “It’s a decision I have been battling with for some time. I’ve been moved mostly by my revolutionary consciousness.
“I don’t regret having taken this decision.
“The cause for me is to advance revolution and nothing else. I saw that the project we had as COPE, much as it was a good idea, was not working for me because of the crippling factional infighting in the organisation,” Gqomo said.
He added that he left COPE because he noted it was not focused on fighting poverty and underdevelopment but merely on leadership battles and court mudslinging. “I cannot have a role to spin infighting forever.
“For me COPE never had a plan or a foundation and that is what has been killing all these opposition political parties,” Gqomo said.
Kuluta said he came to the decision after being persuaded for some time by Zuma and the provincial ANC secretary Oscar Mabuyane, to come back to the ANC.
“The ANC has always been my home but I am one of those people who made a mistake after the Polokwane conference and thought that COPE was the solution to problems that we had in the ANC at the time.
“I have since realised that to think that any other political party can solve the problems faced by the country, was a mistake.
“My decision started in 2010 when president Zuma invited me to his residence and asked me why I had left the party. That has been haunting me since that meeting.
“COPE infighting and divisions were the last straw. I was sick and tired of being part of that circus and decided to allow COPE to die peacefully and rest in peace,” Kuluta said, also hinting that some COPE MPLs could follow suite soon. —
