ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula has cracked down on ill-discipline in the party and has initiated charges against Jacob Zuma loyalist Tony Yengeni for bringing it into disrepute.
Mbalula has also brought charges against national executive committee member and deputy police minister Obed Bapela over a visit to Morocco last year in violation of ANC policy.
He announced the disciplinary crackdown on Monday at a briefing in Cape Town ahead of the ANC’s 113th anniversary celebrations, which will culminate in an address to its January 8 commemoration by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Saturday.
The ANC uses the annual event to focus on its policy priorities and programmes inside and outside government for the year ahead.
In response to questions, Mbalula said that he had informed Yengeni, a former member of the ANC national executive committee, that he would be charging him over his online comments, which brought the party into disrepute.
Mbalula described Yengeni, who was jailed in 2006 for lying to parliament over a luxury vehicle he received from a defence contractor, as a “political Casanova” who “thinks he is a law unto himself”.
He said Yengeni was “spewing vagrant political views that are embraced by a few malcontents who are opposed to the ANC”.
“He will be charged. I have called him. I have informed him via SMS that we are going to charge him,” Mbalula said. “We will bring him before the disciplinary committee of the ANC.”
Yengeni was a “very ill-disciplined member of the ANC” who “supports everything about the uMkhonto weSizwe party”.
Mbalula said he would be charged over a number of statements he had made which contradicted ANC policy and brought it into disrepute and that action would be taken against other errant party members.
“Discipline in the ANC is important. We have seen other people on Twitter every day … leaders of the ANC tweeting things that bring the ANC into disrepute. They too will be attended to very soon.”
Mbalula said there was “nothing wrong about raising views but to attack the organisation and cast aspersions on the leadership of the ANC, that will not be tolerated”.
“They will be brought to book. They will be brought to discipline.”
The national ANC was aware that some provincial leaders had decided to ignore ill-discipline, despite their responsibility to instil order, and would intervene where they failed to do so.
“The time to talk and not discipline people who bring the organisation into disrepute is over,” he said.
Bapela would be charged for “distorting ANC policy” over his trip to Morocco and had been informed of this.
Mbalula said the only issue on the agenda for the national executive committee meeting on Monday evening would be the adoption of the January 8 statement, which had been processed by party officials on Sunday.
The January 8 rally will be held in marquees at Mandela Park in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, an ANC stronghold, to “communicate a message” that the party wanted to “reconnect with our people” in the Western Cape and elsewhere.
Mbalula said that committee would “reflect upon” the decision by the South African Communist Party to contest elections on its own and that it had an “appointment” with the party at which it would brief the ANC leadership on the decision.
He said the ANC was against the communist party going it alone as this would weaken the alliance further and was a “catastrophe” from his party’s point of view.
However, they would engage internally, and not in the media, Mbalula said.
Yengeni did not respond to calls from the Mail & Guardian.
