African National Congress national executive committee member and Ekurhuleni Mayor Mzwandile Masina has hit out at the party's alliance partners, the MK [Umkhonto WeSizwe] Council and has asked for the Gupta family to leave the ANC alone.
"Comrade President let's ask the Guptas to give the ANC space to conduct the revolution," Masina said on Friday.
"We don't mean to choose friends for leaders of the ANC, but there's a limit to everything. People died in the ANC and for this country we can't surrender the sovereignty of the ANC," Masina added.
He delivered a short speech before President Jacob Zuma gave a keynote address at the Umkhonto WeSizwe Military Veterans Association's 5th national conference which is taking place throughout the weekend.
The conference took place on the back of several disagreements between the association and former senior leaders of MK, who were bandied under the name MK Council. The council announced that it would not participate in the conference or a proposed consultative conference set to take place in June because none would yield any fruit.
The grouping which emerged towards the end of 2016 said it was there to help the ANC change its downward trajectory.
"It can't be because you are former soldiers of MK as individuals in our own hidden corners that you think you have the monopoly of wisdom just to create a structure as and when you like outside of the ANC," he said.
He further called on the members of the MK Council to attend gatherings like the one currently underway, saying it was the formal platform created for the different leaders to engage on issues.
'Dictate to ANC'
Masina also reserved some anger for members of the tripartite alliance - this after the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions called for the ANC and country's president to step down as the head of state.
Cosatu went a step further and banned the president from speaking at any of its events after Zuma was booed and heckled at a workers day rally in May.
"This new phenomenon from the SACP and Cosatu to seek to dictate to the ANC who must lead the ANC is foreign and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms," he said.
Masina who repeatedly quoted teachings from the ANC's longest serving president Oliver Reginald Tambo said people could not sit in the ANC national executive committee and lose out in certain decisions, then put on a different cap representing a different organisation and then hurl insults at choices made in their presence.
"It is un-ANC," Masina exclaimed.
He urged all organisations to sit down and talk through their issues, saying a few individuals could not be allowed to destroy the alliance.
He also expressed some concern as part of the younger generation of leaders in the party over the state of the party when they eventually inherited it.
"All of us are required to be disciplined during this moment to ensure that we rebuild the ANC because we the younger generation of the ANC do not want to inherit an ANC that's disorganised," said Masina. --News24