national 26.1.2016 10:14 am
Tito Mboweni takes on Mbeki
Former Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni. (File Photo by Gallo Images / Foto24 / Lertao Maduna)
“This really gets under my skin.”
Former Governor of the South African Reserve Bank Tito Mboweni took to his Facebook account to challenge former South African president Thabo Mbeki’s use of the phrase “ruling party” to refer to the ANC.
This comes after Mbeki wrote a letter titled Yet another myth: Mbeki and the monopolisation of power, published on his Facebook account.
“It has therefore been stated as a fact that I centralised this power in the government presidency, the Union Buildings, and therefore government in general, marginalised the ANC itself from discharging its responsibilities as a democratically mandated ruling party, and created the possibility for problems emanating from the phenomenon of ‘two centres of power’,” wrote Mbeki on a letter in which he referred to the ANC as a “ruling party” seven times.
In a bid to correct what Mboweni sees as an incorrect description of what political parties are in South Africa, he said contrary to popular belief, the ANC is not a “ruling party” but a “governing party”.
According to Mboweni, only monarchs are rulers, because unlike political parties who get elected to power by the people, monarchs inherit their leadership positions.
“Political parties, by their nature, cannot ‘rule’, but ‘govern’ based on the will of the people. They are voted into power. They can be removed by the voters, the people,” Mboweni explained.
“Rulers on the other hand are not voted into power but inherit their positions from their forebears. kings, queens, etc. King Moswati, Letsie, Queen Modjadji, etc are ‘rulers’, monarchs for life. They are not voted into power,” wrote Mboweni.
Mboweni lashed out at the ANC and Mbeki, saying the tendency of seeing the ANC as a “ruling party” was “the usual error that ANC people make”.
“In volume three (3) of the Thabo Mbeki letters, the President makes the usual error that ANC people make. This really gets under my skin. Sorry Sir!” lashed out Mboweni.
“Failure to comprehend this distinction can have severe ‘politico-psychological’ implications where people think they will ‘rule’ forever=one party states.”
SOURCE: The Citizen
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