Baleka Mbete, in her capacity as ANC national chairman, has been making some curious remarks of late. If Mbete - the third-most powerful politician in the country by virtue of her position as Speaker of the National Assembly - is to be believed, South Africa is in grave danger.Its "enemies", both foreign and local - within and outside the governing ANC - are plotting to unseat a democratic government.That is what the Speaker has implied at a number of ANC gatherings at which she has spoken since the beginning of the year, the latest being the launch of the party's street committees initiative in Germiston, Ekurhuleni, on the East Rand, on Sunday.Mbete used the gathering to, among other things, restate her belief that there were dark forces out there hellbent on destabilising the country."But," she said, "the ANC is not a drug that you just smoke; it has been around for 103 years so whoever thinks they can topple it is playing games," Media24 quoted her as saying.In February, the Mail & Guardian reported that Mbete had told an ANC gathering in North West that Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters were working "with some Western countries" to cause instability in this country."They want to - in their words - collapse parliament so they can force this country to an early election. They want to take this country so that they must take over the mines and share them with friends they were seen gallivanting with in Europe," she said."My question is: Where will we be when they do that? Who do they think they are?"Mbete went on: "You must teach our children not to be misled by those wearing red overalls. Those people are not working with people of this country alone; they are pawns in a bigger scheme of things where some Western governments are involved."The newspaper further reported that Mbete said Western countries did not want President Jacob Zuma in power because he was "a stubborn, rural man from Nkandla" who is committed to ANC policies."How can a rural man sit with them on international structures?"It would have been easy to dismiss her remarks as empty rhetoric from an ANC leader battling to explain to her constituency why Malema's small outfit seems to outfox the oldest liberation movement on the continent more often than not.But then, at a function in Polokwane, Limpopo, her accusing finger pointed at her own party.Some ANC MPs, Mbete said, were plotting to oust Zuma before the meeting of the party's national general council, scheduled for October.These MPs, she said, were not happy with Zuma's re-election as party president in 2012 and had made it their business to fight him."There are people there in parliament who have allowed themselves to become [part] of a whole huge agenda . 'Zuma must go' and they can't wait for the next congress of the ANC," she was quoted as saying.Her remarks must have put the ANC caucus in a difficult position.Here is the presiding officer of the National Assembly - and the party's third-in-command - telling the world that, within its ranks, people are plotting their leader's fall, presumably with the assistance of the "Western-sponsored" opposition.The ANC is going through the worst period since it took over the government in 1994. The negative feelings towards the party, as its own studies show, is no longer limited to opposition voters. Even its own members are unhappy about a lot of things, from the slow pace of service delivery to the government's handling of the Nkandla debacle.That is obviously why Mbete and other party leaders feel under siege.But blaming it all on "the West" and other forces that want to see the back of the ANC is to avoid the problems.If there is any immediate danger to the ANC and its government, it is the ANC itself.There are no foreign forces manufacturing public discontent. It is the party's response to important issues that is causing a lot of anger and resentment among citizens.Take Police Minister Nathi Nhleko's report on Nkandla, in which he ruled, among other things, that the president is not liable to pay even a portion of the state money used to build him a swimming pool because, according to Nhleko, such a pool can be used in an emergency as a fire pool.Now, because of Mbete's allegation, ANC MPs who are as unconvinced by Nhleko's reasoning as many other people throughout the country, will shy away from stating their opinions out of fear of being accused of plotting.Such an environment of fear and suspicion might help quell internal dissent. But only for a while.Instead of pointing fingers at others, Mbete and her colleagues in the top echelons of both party and state should be asking themselves searching questions about how they got the country here...