Makhosi Khoza: ANC must suspend or charge Manana, and stop vilifying me
The dissident MP says August 8 will be remembered as the day the ANC's moral pulse was all but extinguished.
Former ANC MP Makhosi Khoza. Picture: Gallo Images
Outspoken ANC MP Dr Makhosi Khoza has challenged the ruling party to suspend deputy minister of higher education Mduduzi Manana, as he “has admitted to having assaulted a woman”.
Khoza is baffled that Manana has “not been suspended from his position, nor has the party initiated any disciplinary action”, and says she wonders why the ANC Women’s League has defended him “with the astoundingly insulting argument that there are others within government who are ‘actually worse than him'”.
The dissident PhD graduate and fierce critic of President Jacob Zuma has taken to social media this morning to “reflect” on the vote of no confidence, saying “8 August 2017 will go down in South African history as the day where the ANC’s moral pulse was all but extinguished”.
Khoza said it was “doubtful whether much of a moral pulse existed at all. Coming out of the vote, the pulse was there, thanks to the actions of 25-35 ANC MPs, but that pulse is now weak and fading”.
“Despite party-focused instruction and barely veiled threats from their leaders, these righteous members stood their ground.
“They stood true to their oaths as MPs, choosing to defend the rights of those who elected them to public office, instead of defending the immoral and indefensible,” she wrote.
READ MORE: Happy Women’s Day, Dr Makhosi Khoza, you deserved far more
Declaring herself as one of those who voted against Zuma, she asked if there was anything to celebrate after the results. “In those voting booths, we were all confronted with the same choice, to choose between right and wrong. To choose between self-enrichment and the service of our people.”
She expressed her disappointment with the outcome.
“The ANC is a shadow of its former self, and while political parties must change and grow with time, we have gravely erred by losing our moral compass,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
She also questioned how the ruling party MPs chose to support a head of state found to have violated the oath of his office by the Constitutional Court.
“In the recent past, it has become evident that not only will most of the ANC choose to defend an immoral leader, they will also choose to attack those who side with morality and honesty.”
The ANC KwaZulu-Natal provincial executive committee (PEC) has gone on record saying it will charge Khoza for ill-discipline, with the MP saying they had no authority to institute disciplinary action against her.
For more news your way, follow The Citizen on Facebook and Twitter.
