Mbeki: ANC faces threat from within
Updated | By JacarandaFM News
Former president, Thabo Mbeki, says the ANC faces the third most serious threat of its existence.
Mbeki was delivering the 5th OIiver Tambo lecture at Wits University on Friday night.
He says the threat that the ANC now faces comes from within the movement itself.
Mbeki questioned whether members of the party are equipped to address the issues plaguing the organisation.
"When the ANC faced a threat of existence in 1940, its members successfully intervened to address that threat and again when it faced a threat from the 1960s onwards, its members successfully intervened," said Mbeki.
"Today, ANC members face yet another challenge and the immense and historic challenge we face is to answer the question of whether the ANC has the required members to successfully address this new threat to the very survival of the organisation".
"The ANC faces this third strategic threat when unfortunately we no longer have Oliver Tambo among us," said Mbeki.
Mbeki also called out the ruling party for failing to do what Nelson Mandela mentioned two decades ago - to purge itself of the mercanaries who have joined its ranks and to make it difficult for such elements to join the movement.
"That failure surely means that inevitably the negative situation that Mandela decried would get worse, as was attested to by ANC secretary general (Gwede) Mantashe in July," said Mbeki.
"The numbers of those who see the ANC as but a mere tool to access political power and corrupt that power would increase".
"What was and was seen to be abnormal twenty years ago in 1997 would become the norm in 2017. Hence the observation made by comrade Mantashe concerning fighting for deployment among ANC members as if there is no tomorrow," said Mbeki.
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