Durban – Presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma kept her jabs at a minimal at her final public appearance before the ANC 54th elective conference in Nasrec next weekend.

While a large contingent of her closest allies laid into her rival Deputy President Cyril Rampahosa, Dlamini-Zuma stuck to calls for unity and peace at the hotly contested leadership battle.

There was no mention of Ramaphosa or his comments on Fezekile Kuzwayo, also known as Khwezi, who accused President Jacob Zuma of raping her in 2005.

On Thursday evening, Ramaphosa was interviewed by 702’s Karima Brown, who pressed him on whether he believed Khwezi.

At first, Ramaphosa said he had to go with the outcome of the court case in 2006, in which Zuma was acquitted, but he also had to take heed of what Khwezi said, and that he had sympathy for her.

After being asked if he understood how difficult it was for women to come forward with allegations of sexual violence, he said: “Yes, I would believe her.”

Ramaphosa ‘desperate’ 

Both KZN leader Sihle Zikalala and ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini focused on Ramaphosa’s comments on Khwezi, with Zikalala labelling him “desperate”.

Dlamini-Zuma rather stuck to her common campaign points, including radical economic transformation, youth development and cohesion and peace within the ruling party.

“Many of my people still aren’t sure that they are going to eat three times a day, some aren’t even sure if they’ll eat once in a day. We have a large number of unemployed youth, we are also facing a big gap between those who have and those who don’t have. We are facing a situation of violent crime in SA.”

READ: KZN ANC leadership slates Ramaphosa  

She said that the ANC had to come out of the Nasrec conference with resolutions that would deal with those issues.

She said the ANC had to begin by affirming implementation of policies that have been decided on already.

“One of those is that there must radical economic transformation, that is the ANC’s policy, now we have to talk about it at the conference and figure out how we are going to implement it.”

She said the party and its alliance partners had to leave the conference stronger than ever.

Unifying songs 

She also urged her supporters not to sing songs in her favour at the conference.

“I’ve heard your songs comrades, but we have to leave them here today. When we get to Nasrec, we must sing songs that unite us. We must all sing all our songs. Because when we get to the conference, we must get there to make decisions, in good spirit and in our ANC paraphernalia, together as the ANC.”

Dlamini-Zuma called for mutual respect and an end to disruptive behaviour “because we want the ANC conference to be peaceful, united and successful”.

“When we get to the conference, we will have vibrant debates but we will not disrespect anyone. We won’t be rude and we will not expect anyone to be rude. Once the decision has been made, whoever was hoping to get picked must listen to the one who gets chosen. The chosen one mustn’t say ‘you didn’t vote for me’.”

“So you must be prepared to argue your case and don’t be too comfortable. Argue your case and win it properly.”

She added that white people still held economic power.

“There is nowhere in our economy where you can confidently say this is being controlled by black people. That is why the ANC took the decision to say there needs to be radical economic transformation. If you exclude the majority, and you think the economy is still going to grow, it won’t.”

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