South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) is now faced with a new crisis.
S. Africa: Ruling ANC losing supporters confidence - Secretary-General
The party’s Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe has said the party has lost the confidence of some of its supporters and risks losing all of them if it does not deal with the president’s hyper-criticism.
He made the comment at the commemoration of the 1993 killing of anti-apartheid activist, Chris Hani.
DTN South Africa: Mantashe admits ANC is losing supporters’ confidence: The ANC’s secretary general has warned… https://t.co/gNbb9VHXnX— DTN South Africa (@DTNSouthAfrica) April 11, 2016
The ANC which came to power in 1994 after the end of the apartheid regime, has been in damage control mode since South Africa’s Constitutional Court ruled that President Zuma failed to uphold the constitution by not respecting an order to repay money used for non-security upgrade to his Nkandla home.
“It is not the Constitutional Court judgement that is the issue. The issue is the trust deficit that has developed, with people beginning to trust us less and less and less and less,” the ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe said.
South Africa’s opposition parties have since the ruling intensified their efforts to get Jacob Zuma out of office. Their bid to get the president impeached last week was however crushed by the ANC majority in parliament.
Mantashe defended the ANC’s rejection of the impeachment of Jacob Zuma, saying allowing the process to sail through would amount to doing the opposition’s bidding.
“But it doesn’t absolve us from looking into our own behaviour. There must be change in our behaviour as a movement,” he added. “If we don’t change our behaviour, we become arrogant in dealing with our problems. We are going to pay the price.”
Zuma’s woes go beyond just the Nkandla scandal. His close relations with the wealthy Indian family, the Guptas has also earned him a lot of flak especially after the deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas said the Gupta family had offered him the position of finance minister which he rejected.
Last Friday, Zuma’s son, Duduzane announced that he was quitting his position as a director at a mining firm owned by the Gupta because of the attacks on his family.