WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-03-13 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
By Sibusiso Ngalwa and Deon de Lange
The ANC’s National Executive Committee is to decide at the weekend whether party deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe should be deployed to parliament and ultimately the cabinet.
While ANC president Jacob Zuma went to the Constitutional Court this week to fight his legal battles, the party’s NEC will gather for a four-day meeting in Kempton Park from Friday.
The party has until April to amend its list of candidates for the National Assembly, which currently does not include Motlanthe. It has three vacancies in the National Assembly to fill.
| The amendment to the ANC’s National Assembly candidates list would be finalised at the NEC meeting |
Motlanthe is widely touted as a compromise candidate for the country’s presidency, given Zuma’s fraud and corruption trial. Hence the push for him to join parliament and groom him for higher office.
The country’s constitution allows for two non-MPs to be ministers, but these posts have been filled by Makhenkesi Stofile (Sport and Recreation) and Mosibudi Mangena (Science and Technology).
Motlanthe would therefore have to be sworn in as a parliamentarian if it is decided to make him a minister. His possible cabinet deployment was apparently discussed at a recent meeting between Zuma and President Thabo Mbeki.
Party sources said the amendment to the ANC’s National Assembly candidates list would be finalised at the NEC meeting, where there would be final clarity on the Motlanthe issue. The NEC meeting is the last before the deadline for political parties to amend their lists.
It is understood that Motlanthe is uneasy about joining the government as he feels the NEC is well represented there, with 11 cabinet ministers and three deputies.
| It is understood that Motlanthe is uneasy about joining the government |
The NEC meeting will begin with Zuma giving a political overview on the state of the party, as well as reports on the state of the ANC in the provinces. The date for the party’s national list conference, when it chooses its candidates for parliament in 2009, will also be decided.
The NEC meeting comes at a time when the euphoria after Polokwane has subsided and Zuma’s coalition – which catapulted him into power – has begun showing cracks. Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi is on record as saying the “honeymoon is over”.
On Wednesday night, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe put a spoke in Cosatu’s wheel by dismissing calls for the federation to be represented on the NEC. Cosatu has been pushing for a special dispensation that would allow its leaders to be co-opted.
Mantashe warned in Cape Town that this call was “selfish”, “opportunistic” and “confusing”. He was speaking during a debate arranged by the Centre for Conflict Resolution on trade unionism post-Polokwane.
Mantashe – himself a former secretary-general of the influential National Union of Mineworkers and current SA Communist Party chairperson – suggested the federation’s call for special treatment would close the “space for engagement” that had been created with the ousting of Mbeki.
“It (Cosatu) must adopt the correct tactics and not be over-excited by the victory,” he said.
Mantashe warned of three “tactics” that would alienate the ANC in the long term.
These were: the demand for co-option onto the NEC; the demand for Cosatu national office-bearers to serve as ex-officio members on the NEC; and the practice of publishing preferred candidate lists for the ANC’s elective conferences.
“I think the demand that Cosatu members must be co-opted onto the NEC … is based on the selfish notion that we (Cosatu) contributed to victory in Polokwane.”
Referring to the call for ex-officio representation on the NEC as “confusing”, Mantashe asked if this would imply reciprocal representation of ANC officials on Cosatu’s leadership structures.
Clearly defining the trade union ally’s role as that of an external agent, he encouraged Cosatu to remain militant and to “be all over us if we move to the Right”.