Lekota interview - 1996

[Sherbang]

I found a really interesting website http://www.omalley.co.za/ from a link in an article on PoliticsWeb which featured an extract of an interview with Lekota from 1996...

I was surprised that Lekota was saying the same kind of things in 1996 already, as he is saying today, for example:

In the interview, Lekota warns against a party culture in which the ANC is seen as more important than the Constitution and defends his actions as entirely justifiable and in terms of his Constitutional mandate. The interview needs to be read its entirety, as it's a complex issue, but importantly this is what Lekota had to say about Zuma's comments:

Padraig O'Malley: "Well they (ANC members) are more or less like puppets of the ANC, accountable to the national leadership of the ANC. If you toe the line you're OK, if you don't appear to toe the line out you go."

Lekota: "Indeed yes. And once you do that I think you reduce to nil whatever gains of democracy we have cherished and continue to hope will become the order of the day in this country. Really, these two issues for me they are critical questions. Jacob Zuma made a statement two weeks ago I think in Durban in which he said that the ANC is above the constitution of the country. I think it's an absolute disaster."

The OMalley website is itself really interesting reading:

An extensive collection of Padraig O'Malley's interviews conducted between 1985 and 2005 with many key personalities, who influenced South Africa's political history. The collection presents a broad range of perspectives on events in South Africa during and after the Apartheid period. There are also summaries of historical events by year as well as descriptions of the historical background to place events in context.