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National Congress.
“I am still agonising over it,” he said just hours after the ANC-controlled province of Gauteng, the economic hub of the country, backed him to replace the increasingly unpopular Zuma as party president.
The party holds a leadership conference in just under three weeks and provinces are in the process of declaring whom they want for top party posts.
Given the ANC’s electoral dominance, the leader of the party is almost certain to become the next president at elections in 2014.
Motlanthe said the answer could only come once the ANC’s regions had spoken.
“The question will be answered once it’s posed by the right body,” he said when pressed to give an indication of whether he will run if he garners enough party support.
“I may not even be nominated for all you know because the people who are making these announcements are not responsible for the process. They are doing so merely with the aim of influencing the process.”
Asked about his relationship with Zuma, Motlanthe — who repeatedly said that he is not a politician but has “a political attitude” — replied: “He is my president. He has all the qualities of being a president of the ANC.”
Meanwhile, ANC delegates in Mpumalanga on Thursday called for the disbandment of the ANC Youth League’s national leadership.
“The current leadership of the ANCYL has undermined the ANC and continues to hold parallel programmes that are anti-ANC,” a delegate said to loud cheers from the packed hall. A total of 469 delegates from across the province, a stronghold of President Jacob Zuma, are expected to nominate their preferred leaders for the ANC’s elective conference in Mangaung next month.
Delegates requested that the proposal to disband the ANCYL be put on the agenda and be debated.
“We mandate the ANC to disband the youth league before it is too late,” the delegate said.
Acting ANCYL president Ronald Lamola arrived at the conference just as delegates broke for lunch.
He laughed and shook hands with party provincial chairperson David Mabuza and the rest of the leadership.
Lamola is reported to have fallen out with expelled leader Julius Malema over who should be nominated deputy to Kgalema Motlanthe at Mangaung. Also present at the conference were members of the party’s national executive committee, Deputy Minister of Defence Thabang Makwetla, Communications Minister Dina Pule, and Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini. — SAPA/AFP.
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