Business Day
*Nehawu berates ANC leaders* *Natasha Marrian, Business Day, Johannesburg, 30 March 2012 *LEADERS in the African National Congress (ANC) are wrong to keep silent while their names are used in a premature succession debate, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) said yesterday, in a veiled reference to Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe .
Mr Motlanthe is widely reported to be ready to accept nomination to challenge the incumbent, President Jacob Zuma , when the ANC elects a new president of the party in December at Mangaung.
The union's comments came a day after the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal urged leaders to refrain from being "provoked" by those entering the succession terrain prematurely.
The province is Mr Zuma's traditional support base. The KwaZulu-Natal ANC, in a statement by its secretary Sihle Zikalala, criticised those attacking Mr Zuma and secretary-general Gwede Mantashe.
While the formal nomination process starts only in October, jostling for positions was bubbling beneath the surface.
Mr Motlanthe's most outspoken backers, the ANC Youth League, are at the forefront of the push to prevent Mr Zuma from serving a second term at the party's helm and to replace Mr Mantashe with former league president Fikile Mbalula.
Nehawu, a Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) affiliate, said that it was wrong for ANC leaders not to speak out against their names being used. "All of us have been reading the (newspaper) reports ... they know themselves," said the union's general secretary Fikile Majola. "It is incorrect of leaders of the ANC to keep quiet."
The ANC is battling to keep its leadership battle under wraps, with various factions already campaigning for their preferred candidate and the contestation manifesting itself in the ranks of its allies, especially Cosatu.
Nehawu and the National Union of Mineworkers are backing Mr Zuma, along with the Cosatu president Sdumo Dlamini. Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi is more sceptical of allowing Mr Zuma a second term, along with the National Union of Metalworkers of SA under its outspoken general secretary, Irvin Jim.
ANC spokesman Keith Khoza stuck to the official line that "there is no discussion at the moment on the elective conference".
He also distanced the party from lists of names for positions being circulated, saying there were "no known sources" for the lists and they "did not represent any active position of the ANC".
ANC Youth League spokesman Floyd Shivambu yesterday criticised the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, accusing it of openly campaigning for "some leaders".
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