By ORAPELENG MATSHIDISO
It is my contention that the Rocky Malebane-Metsing tendency continues to haunt the ANC in the North West. Malebane-Metsing wanted to be the first North West Premier after 1994.
He felt entitled for the position and believed that deployment in the ANC is a right and not privilege. I was recruited into the ANC and SACP by the late comrade Pule Motjetje and he taught me that, deployment in the ANC is a privilege to serve the people not an entitlement or right.
This discussion came after his term of office as ANC councillor had ended. Since I was new in the ANC, I felt that he was supposed to be re-elected because he selflessly served the community. However, he told me that I was still young and new, but with time, I will learn and understand what informs the deployment within the ANC.
Although, I still strongly believe that had the ANC considered redeploying him again as its councillor, I have no doubt that the people were still going to vote for him as the ANC candidate. I strongly believe that the Rocky Malebane-Metsing tendency has not been erased in the political psychology of many members and ANC leaders in the province.
Thirty years later we still have comrades who think they are entitled for deployment and it is their right to be deployed. I posit that many still need to be schooled about the culture, values and traditions of the ANC.
One other issue that I think needs to be attended to, is the integration of the North West into the thinking and social-psychology of the society. We have only legislatively integrated and demarcated the parts of Northern Cape, Western Transvaal and Bophuthatswana into one province, but the ANC has never had a solid Program of Action to entrenched that into the psyche of the people and its members.
In social and political gatherings, there is that undertone of calling or referring to each other as the residents of either Bophuthatswana or Western Transvaal etc. One day, I will write a proper article about those important issues.
(Note: Mr Orapeleng Matshidiso is a member of the ANC in the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati and writes in his personal capacity. The content of the article remains the views of Mr Orapeleng Matshidiso and Taung DailyNews and its associates, do not agree nor disagree with the views raised.)
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