Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Congress of the People (Cope) has denied claims that senior ANC leaders were behind the party’s formation.
Speaking to News24 on Monday morning, Cope spokesperson Dennis Bloem said:
He added that they “want to put it categorically clear that former president Mbeki was never a member or an advisor of Cope and that those allegations are far from the truth”.
Bloem, however, added that it was not a secret that Mbeki’s late mother, Epainette Nomaka Mbeki, had become a card-carrying Cope member after resigning from the ANC.
He said:
He said allegations that former finance ministers Trevor Manuel and Tito Mboweni, and current Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, were also involved in the formation of Cope and had funded the party in the background, were “utter nonsense”.
Bloem’s comments come after media personality JJ Tabane, who worked as Cope’s communications director and later a political advisor, alleged in an interview that ANC leaders – including Mboweni, Manuel, Mbeki, Kgalema Motlanthe and Godongwana – were responsible for the formation of Cope in the lead-up to the 2009 elections.
Following Tabane’s allegations, media reports also claimed that ANC NEC member Lindiwe Sisulu, who is believed to be campaigning for a top six position in the party, had asked President Cyril Ramaphosa to investigate allegations that senior ANC leaders were behind the formation of splinter party Cope.
Sisulu is said to have told Ramaphosa that, if Tabane’s claims were true, the act would be treachery and needed to be thoroughly investigated.
She also said Tabane’s remarks could not be dismissed as gossip because “he was in the thick of things during the formation and the early years of Cope” as the party’s “communications director and later a political advisor in the party at the time”.
Bloem dismissed Sisulu’s request for an investigation into the formation of the party, saying:
He called on “all those who make these wild and unfounded allegations to come to the fore with proof”.
Several senior ANC members – including Mosiuoa Lekota, Mbhazima Shilowa and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka – who were unhappy with the looming election of a criminally charged Jacob Zuma as president, formed Cope after the party recalled Mbeki as president.
The ANC is yet to respond to whether the party will be investigating the allegations or not.
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