Cape Town – Former South African president Thabo Mbeki has expressed uncertainty about whether he will campaign for his political party, the African National Congress (ANC), in the upcoming national elections.
According to EWN, Mbeki, who recently returned from Guinea Conakry after engaging with citizens and hosting an Africa Day lecture, discussed his concerns about the state of governance in the country.
He said he’s unable to say for sure if he will campaign for the ANC in next year’s national polls.
“It’s a legitimate question. But I’m unable to answer it today; I’m not sure,” says Mbeki when asked if he will take the ANC’s manifesto to South Africans to help the political party.
“Indeed, there are many things that are going wrong, which are not being attended to. I can’t go to ordinary people in our country and say vote for these people who are doing wrong things,” the report quoted Mbeki as saying.
In an interview with SABC’s Sophie Mokoena recently, Mbeki questioned why it has taken 19 years to finish the Kusile Power Station and said that someone may be deliberately obstructing the effectiveness of the country’s power stations.
He did not disclose who this person might be.
“Those power stations were Kusile and Medupi. We have not finished Kusile up to now. That is 19 years later. How do you explain that? Somebody needs to look at that in a focused way. How do you explain this, you can’t take 19 years to finish a power station.
“It is because somebody did not want the power station to be finished. Deliberate conscious, so we must find out that in order to move,” Mbeki said.
“Somebody didn’t want the power stations (Kusile & Medupi) to be finished” – former President, Thabo Mbeki in conversation with @Sophie_Mokoena pic.twitter.com/dwna2vxURB
— Aldrin Sampear (@AldrinSampear) May 25, 2023
He also quite recently, commented on the cholera outbreak in Hamaanskraal, describing it as a clear indication of worsening governance in South Africa.
As the country grapples with the disease outbreak, Mbeki expressed concern over the decline in the quality of governance and said that South Africa has been facing a serious crisis for some time.
He also suggested that citizens may need to resort to revolt in order to grab the attention of national leaders and put pressure on them to address the issues.
“It says that there’s a serious deterioration in the quality of governance,” the report quoted Mbeki as saying
He added: “It may very well be that whoever is in government requires this pressure from below, when masses of the people rebel against a system of government that’s not working in their interests.”
He highlighted the need for citizens to apply pressure on those responsible for addressing issues.
He also addressed the issue of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, suggesting that the Brics summit should proceed but not on South African soil due to legal obligations that would require the arrest of President Putin.
Mbeki said: “I think Brics countries must agree either to hold the summit chaired by South Africa in one of the Brics countries outside South Africa or hold it virtually because I’m quite sure we can’t say to President Putin ‘please come to South Afric’ and arrest him. At the same time, we can’t say ‘come to South Africa’ and not arrest him because we are defying our own law. We can’t behave as a lawless government.”
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
