The ANC is under the pump, last week’s SONA festivities made that clear, but you have to think that sometimes they don’t help themselves much with claims like these.

I’m referring to the bit where ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe told supporters that the American Embassy in Pretoria were holding meetings aimed at regime change. Below from IOL:

…Mantashe said they needed to be vigilant and “see through anarchy and people who are out there in a programme of regime change”.

He said the ANC knew of regular meetings at the US embassy in Pretoria which were about “mobilisation for regime change”.

The ANC was also aware of a programme that involved taking young people to the US for six weeks and on return, planting them “everywhere”, including universities.

So what does the US ambassador to South Africa Patrick Gaspard have to say about it all? Over to his Twitter account:

Not that these tweets have eased the ANC’s worries:

“We will elevate this matter to a formal level,” ANC spokesman Keith Khoza said on Saturday…

…Khoza said such tweets would not deter the ANC from taking the issue seriously. “We will raise our concerns as a country whether they make a joke of it or not. If they (the US) had a concern and raised it with us, we wouldn’t treat it as a joke”…

Andrew Gasnola, 30, of Cape Town, who in 2014 participated in the six-week programme, said Mantashe’s statements were puzzling.

He said the programme did not target only South Africans, but young leaders from the entire African continent. “Some who went on the programme are ANC members,” Gasnola said.

If I was in the business of offering advice I might suggest that the ANC pick their battles a little more carefully – or else risk looking like that really paranoid guy at the party who ate the strong batch and spends the night holed up in the basement.

[source:iol]