Durban — Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has hinted that she would turn down an offer to serve under President Cyril Ramaphosa if he remained president after the next general elections.
Speaking on the SABC at the weekend, Sisulu said she did not know whether she would accept deployment to the Cabinet by Ramaphosa if he retained the presidency after the elections, to take place in 2024.
The party’s NEC member and presidential hopeful was the first NEC member to call on the president to step down over the raging Phala Phala debacle.
She said the Phala Phala saga was tainting the president and the ANC, adding that stepping aside would also be good for the president’s image.
Sisulu joined other party members who were dissatisfied with how the step-aside rule was being implemented, saying it was opportunistically adopted and selectively implemented.
The minister said the issue with the step-aside rule was that the party found someone to be in the wrong while a matter was “still being ventilated in court”. Asked whether she had raised the Phala Phala matter in an NEC meeting, she said she had not because it had not been tabled for discussion, but vowed to raise it in the coming NEC meeting.
Sisulu also called on the ANC conference delegates to formulate policy around the funding of members campaigning for positions in the party. She said ANC stalwart Tokyo Sexwale was on record as saying that Ramaphosa had “bought” the conference in 2017, saying she hoped that would not happen again if it was true.
She said she would support a resolution that would prevent funding of individual members’ campaigns. She used Mozambique as an example, where she said the campaigns for members were run by the party, and candidates played no role in them. However, she refused to say whether she herself believed that the 2017 conference was bought.
Furthermore, Sisulu took a swipe at Ramaphosa on the issue of the Israel embassy’s downgrading to an ordinary office, which was a response to Israel’s stance on Palestine. She said after the 2017 conference where a resolution was taken to downgrade the embassy, the president and the ANC failed to protect her when Jewish people allegedly attacked her for carrying out the government and party’s resolution.
“We took a resolution to downgrade the Israel embassy into an ordinary office which I did, but I felt punished by Jews and the ANC. I was publicly humiliated. The president did not protect me and I was left dangling alone,” said Sisulu.
On the Eskom saga, she said change was needed, adding the conference would have to deal with the collapse of infrastructure. She promised that she would turn around Eskom, saying things would have to change.
Sisulu’s campaigner, Mphumzi Mdekazi said she was still very much in the running to be elected president at the the upcoming ANC conference, adding she was humbled by the branch nominations she had received and continued to receive. She, however, had said she had no problem with working with Dr Zweli Mkhize. Mdekazi said Sisulu’s stance on the judiciary was well articulated in her letter titled “Dear Mzansi have you seen justice”.
The ANC and the Presidency had not responded to questions by the time of publication.
Daily News