CAPE TOWN: Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba – in a Christmas Eve Midnight Mass in St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town on  Sunday night – called for the new ANC leadership to act “quickly and decisively” to replace President Jacob Zuma as head of state and to follow up with a “targeted Cabinet reshuffle”.

Makgoba said, “I cannot see how two centres of power – one centred on the party and the other on the State – can collaborate when their values seem diametrically opposed to one another.

“I cannot see how the ANC will make a clean break with the past and set us on a new course unless the new leaders elected at Nasrec last week, supported by their MPs in Parliament, act boldly and quickly to replace Mr Zuma as President of the country, and to follow that up with a carefully targeted Cabinet reshuffle.

“If they don’t, we can see their fate written in the histories of other liberation movements in the world who have failed to adapt: they will lose power.”

READ: Faith community will only back ethical ANC leaders: Archbishop Makgoba

He continued, “If Mr [Cyril] Ramaphosa wants the ANC to get a new lease of life, he and the new leadership will need to cut the umbilical cord which ties them to the Zuma era, quickly and decisively.

“Our economy is floundering, unemployment is rising and those cohorts of corruption who see they are losing influence are making ever more desperate attempts to loot what they can before their party is over.

“On top of that, the divisions in the ANC have led to a paralysis in decision-making and the implementation of policy. It is time to say, ‘Enough is enough’.”

See the full text of the Archbishop’s sermon below. His comments on the state of the nation begin in the 8th paragraph:

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