THE ANC is dead and it died a long time ago. These are the words of EFF member and pre-eminent advocate Dali Mpofu SC.
Mpofu was speaking during a interview on DJ Sbu’s podcast, Hutlers Corner, where he said if President Cyril Ramaphosa retained the ANC presidency, the EFF would celebrate as this would make their work much easier in 2024.
Mpofu added that 2024 would be a bigger version of 2016 when the ANC lost power in some of the country’s largest metros.
“Firstly, he does not even deserve it. Secondly, I think the dynamics within the party with the Phala Phala thing and the combination of non-performing leadership and the Eskom crisis and all that will at some stage combine and collapse him and the ANC.
“Of course his funders will still try to put up a fight but for us as the EFF, the best outcome is for Cyril to be returned as ANC president at the ANC conference. It will be an unmitigated disaster. It will be easiest ANC for us to defeat and an ANC that is led by someone like Cyril Ramaphosa,” Mpofu said.
The former ANC member said the the party had died a natural death due to corruption of vote-buying at the Nasrec conference, and the factions within it.
“Cyril for me is like a white person who happens to be in a black skin. I wish they make the mistake of bringing him back in December because I will celebrate.
“I hope they bring someone who can do a worse job than him but probably that is impossible. That organisation is dead. Like Coca-Cola, the ANC is a strong brand but that thing is an imagination. It died a log time ago. It will take time for the brand to die but the brand will eventually die the same way the organisation has died,” he said.
Mpofu said the ANC and the current leadership were being used by white funders who installed its leadership at a high cost.
“I think there is an artificial propping up of the ANC by white capital who bought the current leadership at a very high cost. White capital is opportunistic once they see that those people are no longer going to be the automatic government , they are going to withdraw their money and the media gymnastics of trying to portray them as messiahs. Once that evaporates the ANC is going to lose power. People will realise the significance of the EFF, ” Mpofu said.
Mpofu added that people had started to realise that the ANC was no longer the dominant force it was more than 10 years ago. People had started moving away from the ANC as they realised the party no longer served the needs of South Africans.
Having been part of the ANC for over three decades, Mpofu said he realised the party had taken a different direction and no longer served as an instrument for social change in South Africa.
He cited the purging of the youth league, th Marikana massacre and the adoption of the NDP policy as some of the reasons he left the ANC.
“I did not leave the ANC but the ANC left me because the ANC itself was no longer the instrument I had joined. It is not us who left the ANC but the ANC left us when it took the wrong direction,” he said.
“The Marikana massacre for me was a turning point. You cannot have an organisation like the ANC perpetrating the same thing that was done in Sharpville and we think that it is business as usual. The ANC is dying a natural death which is tragic for them but a good thing for the country,” he said.
