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: 2008-10-30 Time: 12:00:17 Posted By: Jan
By Fiona Forde and Political Staff
Almost 14 000 members have resigned from the ANC in the Western Cape and signed up to the breakaway “Shikota” party, according to figures released by the organisers of this weekend’s National Convention in Johannesburg.
Last night’s announcement came as a heated row erupted over a letter that former president Thabo Mbeki wrote to ANC president Jacob Zuma about his views on the ANC and the breakaway group.
By Tuesday evening, 13 946 former Western Cape ANC members were registered on the convention’s database after signing “forms declaring their interest to join a new party”, former Community Safety MEC Leonard Ramatlakane told the Cape Argus.
The Boland has haemorrhaged the most members, with 5 930 now signed up to the party that is expected to be launched on December 16.
The city’s Dullah Omar branch followed, with 3 760 members now committed to the so-called Shikota initiative, while the Cape Overberg region has lost 2 356 and the West Coast 1 900.
When asked how he knew that those who had signed up for the new party were card-carrying ANC members in the Western Cape, Ramatlakane said it had been publicly demonstrated.
“These people destroyed their ANC membership cards in public and then immediately filled in the forms to join the new party,” he said.
The organisers say figures for other provinces will be made available before the two-day National Convention gets under way on Saturday.
And ANC source in the Western Cape has dismissed Ramatlakane’s figures, saying that there was no way to determine the numbers.
With just three days to go before the convention, former Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa told a gathering in Cape Town on Tuesday that further ANC resignations were to be expected between now and then.
He was speaking as ANC stalwarts Phillip Dexter and Kiki Rwexana announced that they too had decided to leave the ANC after more than 50 years of experience in its ranks.
Dexter said that since 2004 the party had undergone “transformation that has angered, saddened and even scared” him as he watched “personal interest and ambition, revenge and vindictiveness become the main driving force of the movement”.
Meanwhile, Shilowa has called on the ANC to make public a letter written by Mbeki to Zuma.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe referred to the letter during a debate at Unisa on Tuesday.
He said Mbeki had written a reply saying the dissidents did not have his blessing and that he had not been consulted on their plans to launch a new party.
But it has since emerged that Mbeki also complained in the letter about not having been consulted by the ANC before it announced that he would be expected to campaign for the party ahead of elections next year – a move that has been interpreted as putting Mbeki’s loyalty to the test.
The Cape Argus understands that Mbeki emphasised in the letter that he remained a loyal member of the ANC – but said he had a problem with the party stating publicly that he would be expected to help campaign for the general election although he had been recalled on the basis that there was a lack of confidence in his leadership.
Shilowa said that the letter should be released in its entirety.
“It would be good and in the interests of democracy and transparency not to say what he said, but to release the letter so the context could be understood by all South Africans.”
Shilowa said that the fact that Mbeki had distanced himself from the breakaway movement proved it was “not an Mbeki project” – a suspicion widely held among the ANC and its allies.
“It proves what we have been saying all along, that this is our initiative and not Thabo Mbeki’s,” Shilowa said.
“Yet despite what we said, it was assumed ever since we started working towards the convention and the party that he was the invisible hand moving us as pawns on the board. But now you see that this was never the case,” he said.
“This is a new political party we are shaping, not an Mbeki project we are directing.”
Mantashe declined further comment on the letter, saying that “you are intruding on communications between the ANC and its cadres”.
It is understood that the letter was delivered to Luthuli House on Monday.
ANC national spokesperson Jessie Duarte said last night that it was not “compulsory” for Mbeki to campaign for the ANC in the run-up to elections.
Mbeki remained a highly respected member of the ANC’s National Executive Committee, and was not “an outcast”. – Additional reporting by Henri du Plessis