Thabo Mbeki breaks silence to endorse ANC
Governing party has admitted its mistakes, former president says, allowing him to campaign again
After years of quiet on the campaigning front and saying his vote was confidential, former president Thabo Mbeki has come out to endorse the ANC. Mbeki has stayed away from the ANC’s election campaigns since he was ousted at the 2007 Polokwane conference and recalled as state president in 2009 in favour of former president Jacob Zuma. Mbeki told journalists at the Rand Easter Show in Johannesburg on Tuesday that the ANC admitted that it had veered off course and had made mistakes and that the consequences included corruption, loss of integrity and lawlessness. This was a very serious observation to make, he said, and contrasted it with what he described as a “different approach” in the years before. “As they were busy [previously] veering off course, they said we have a good story to tell,” Mbeki said. As a result he was unable to call on people before now to vote for the ANC, as it would “not be honest for me to go and talk about it”. Mbeki’s first campaigning in more than a deca...
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