Johannesburg – South Africans need honest people to lead them in municipalities, former President Thabo Mbeki said.
Mbeki, who has been on a campaign trail canvassing votes for the ANC, made his remarks after casting his vote at the Holy Family College in Parktown this morning, a stone’s throw away from the Thabo Mbeki Foundation.
Mbeki, as usual during local and general elections, walked down the Oxford Road to the venue, accompanied by ANC members, including Parks Tau, the former deputy minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, who now serves as Gauteng MEC for Economic Development.
Mbeki said the service delivery problems plaguing local government were common cause and needed to be attended to.
“We need honest people, not thieves. I was voting hoping that the person and the party (whatever the party) that I’m voting for honest people to serve the population here in Johannesburg,” he said.
“Hopefully, that will be the nature and the character of the candidates that get voted in, who therefore have the seriousness to attend to these challenges,” he added.
Mbeki also condemned the killings related to candidate selection processes in KwaZulu Natal and some parts of Gauteng, saying no one should win a council seat on the back of a person’s blood.
The country needed to be peaceful, Mbeki said, noting that killings associated with elections have been happening for several years and had to be stopped.
“In terms of the voting process, at the end of it, whatever the party, we’ve got to work with the elected government. You can’t treat you opponent as your enemy,” he said.
Mbeki has been on the campaign trail for the ANC for the first time since his ouster in 2007 at the ANC elective conference in Polokwane, where he was deposed by former President Jacob Zuma.
Since then, Mbeki had been inactive in the ANC, not even attending meetings of its national executive committee (NEC).
But since the emergence of Cyril Ramaphosa, who rose to power on the ticket of fighting corruption, and the party’s adoption of a resolution to force those facing charges to step aside, Mbeki has made a spectacular comeback.
This has seen addressing business and black professionals – who have proven to be a tough constituency for the ruling party – warning that the ANC was too big to fail.
Former deputy presidents Kgalema Motlanthe and Phumzile Mlambi-Ngcuka were also back campaigning for the ANC.
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