Sello Dithebe,
Free State ANC provincial executive committee (PEC) member, writing in his personal capacity:
The ANC has gone and returned from several conferences and no less than two of its national conferences (in 2017 and 2022) resolved unequivocally to renew itself and society.
This resolve on the part of the ANC, to renew itself and society, is not a mere trite phraseology or revolutionary-sounding rhetoric that is devoid of any substance.
Well over 30 years after the triumph of constitutional supremacy and the rule of law, as well as more than two decades since the adoption of the Through the Eye of the Needle vision, the recent expulsion of its former notorious president and secretary general, the ANC in the Free State cannot and must not affront the sensibilities by rationalising the gravity of violent behaviour of the former mayor of Matjhabeng, who is the only mayor in the country who has organised “hands-off rallies” in his favour, and in violation of a decision of the organisation.
This behaviour in itself deserves strict application of the code of ethics of the ANC and its disciplinary edicts.
Far too many people get seriously injured and even die from the fit of rage of violent men who treat the scourge of violence as a norm.
In particular, it will affront the workers who comprise the majority in society and whose own rights were so grotesquely violated by an individual who treats Matjhabeng as his personal fiefdom and will do everything to cling to what remains of it.
In the last few weeks, families of children who drowned in pits filled with rain water and raw sewage due to negligence and poor service delivery wanted to see empathy.
Some among us pledged their solidarity with these families and yet others seemed to obsess about preserving one individual at the expense of the many.
This is not the time for some among us to close ranks in defence of roguery and the untenable.
When 2026 and 2029 respectively arrive, our motive and society at large must be able to say the ANC had its testing moments in its life and yet decided to choose us (the masses) in Matjhabeng, over an individual that seems incapable of displaying contrition and accountability, and instead attributes his fate to some conspiracy rather to his marginal propensity to be violent and toxic.
None of us was born an ANC member and we enjoy the privilege of being its members and cadres, to the extent that we abide solemnly by the dictates of its oath of membership and an incessant appetite to be a new person; a new cadre; an effective agent for fundamental change.
I choose to be absolved and know deep in my heart and revolutionary consciousness that my truth is predicated on facts; its rebuttal must be informed by facts and that no amount of prevarication and vacillation on this matter will ever consign it into oblivion.
– Letter shortened by editor due to space limitations.
