
He addressed a May Day rally in Mbombela on Wednesday this week.
ANC deputy president DD Mabuza has reportedly called on party members to not use his name to divide the ANC.
Mabuza’s plea comes after claims made by EFF leader Julius Malema last month that there were forces within the NEC who were mobilising for the removal of Cyril Ramaphosa as President in next year’s national general council (NGC). Malema said the forces want Mabuza to replace Ramaphosa.
Addressing a May Day rally in Mbombela this week Wednesday, Mabuza said he would not allow “wolves” to use his name to recall Ramaphosa because that will be killing the ANC.
He said he would defend Ramaphosa and there is nobody who will remove him from office.
“I would like to assure you that the ANC will stay united for our alliance to work better,” Mabuza told workers organised by Cosatu.
“Those who are seeking to divide the ANC will never succeed,” he said while on stage.
“As for me, I don’t have an ambition to push the President, I will defend the President of the ANC, it’s a necessary thing to do. I will not allow wolves to eat the President that will mean the alliance and the ANC have been eaten,” said the deputy president.
He called on NEC members to not air their dirty laundry in the public.
“So there’s no amount of persuasion that can divide the national executive committee. So members of the NEC must stop talking about their frustration, anger. If there are issues let us sit down and talk in our boardroom and not go around dividing the ANC,” said Mabuza, quoted in the Sowetan.
Malema had said that those who are implicated in state capture had refused to be removed from the Parliamentary list, despite the public saying so, and told Ramaphosa right in the face that they were elected by branches and nobody will “unelect” them.
They included Nomvula Mokonyane, Bathabile Dlamini, Melusi Gigaba and Mosebenzi Zwane.
On 1 April 2019, the IEC sent a letter to the ANC, informing it that it had received objections from the public to 30 names on its parliamentary list.
Part of the 30 was Mabuza, Gwede Mantashe, Zweli Mkhize, Angie Motshekga, Bheki Cele, Faith Muthambi, Bongani Bongo, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, David Mahlobo, Supra Mahumapelo, Cedric Frolick and Vincent Smith.
“They went to the NEC and said that those people who are implicated [in state capture] should be removed and they stood up in the meeting and said to him ‘now you want to unelect us?’ That’s the concept they used: ‘you want to unelect us’.
“They told him they were elected by branches and no one is going to remove them,” Malema said last month of the ANC NEC meeting.
Malema said internal rebellion against Ramaphosa’s leadership was growing in the ANC and “he won’t finish his term”.
Two weeks ago while campaigning in the Kagiso township, west of Johannesburg, Ramaphosa dismissed as “fables” the claims by Malema that he will be removed.
“There are fables,” he told TimesLive on the sideline of an ANC rally.
“All sorts of fables as there were fables as we were going to Nasrec saying ‘that one is history, he will never win and is going to be crushed’,” he said.
“There are many fables around town but what we do is to carry on with the work we have been given by our conference, that is all that guides me,” said Ramaphosa.
(edited by MLM)
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