Vote against Zuma at your peril‚ ANC KZN warns its MPs

26 April 2017 - 17:41 By Nathi Olifant
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President Jacob Zuma.
President Jacob Zuma.
Image: South African Government Flickr

The ANC in eThekwini has read the riot act to five of its seven members deployed in Parliament‚ laying down the law and ordering them not to abandon President Jacob Zuma ahead of a planned no-confidence vote.

Speaking during a regional executive committee media briefing in Durban on Wednesday‚ regional ANC secretary Bheki Ntuli said the committee viewed the motion as having all the hallmarks of idiocy‚ describing it as a waste of time and resources by a reckless opposition.

“Its intention is only to cast aspersions and innuendos on the ANC and integrity of the person of the President. The President is a strategic hill [sic] and targeting him as the head of the organisation is intended to destroy the ANC. We call upon all eThekwini deployees into the national parliament to rebuff this counter-revolutionary agenda and attempts at regime change by political stealth‚” said Ntuli.

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He revealed that the province had already met with five of the MPs‚ who come from the eThekwini region‚ to stress the importance of voting along party lines. Asked if the party was not exercising heavy-handedness over the MPs‚ Ntuli was defensive‚ arguing that they were only there as deployees of the region.

“We have sat down with them so that we give them a directive to only implement decisions of the ANC in parliament‚” he said.

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He was particularly vocal against MP Makhosi Khoza‚ who came out on Facebook on April 10 saying that that the politics of patronage had finally claimed the sanity of the ANC leadership and that a triumphant story had turned tragic in her lifetime. Khoza said her party could have handled the upcoming motion of no confidence in Zuma better‚ as it was now caught between choosing the party or society.

Ntuli said: “Makhosi Khoza knows the processes. She does like members who get defeated in the debate in the caucus and go out to other platforms - the media - to air their views."

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Other regional deployees to Parliament are Bheki Cele and Mina Lesoma.

“Our deployees will reject the convoluted attempt to paint them as a loose group of individuals with no ideological orientation or political home. Our members are not sitting ducks‚ ready and willing to administer burial rites of their own liberation movement. We have defeated the enemies of change in every election since 1994‚ and their latest efforts to win through back door agendas as opposed to the people will not succeed.

“We will be meeting with all our deployees and mobilize them to once and for all ensure a decisive victory to all these counter-revolutionary tendencies‚” said Ntuli.

TMG Digital/TimesLIVE

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