POLITICAL NEWS - The ANC resolved on Monday evening at a national working committee meeting to remove both of its spokespersons in the wake of rape and sexual harassment allegations.
Dakota Legoete will therefore continue as the acting spokesperson for now until the cloud of accusations surrounding either man clears.
It emerged on Saturday that the former acting spokesperson, Zizi Kodwa, was accused of rape by an alleged 28-year-old complainant in an incident said to have happened last year in April at a Sandton hotel. The woman claimed in a letter to the ANC that a date rape drug was used on her and she only regained consciousness after the alleged crime.
ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte, who received the letter, advised her to open a case with the police.
The woman appeared to conclude it had been Kodwa who’d raped her because the male underwear she’d allegedly found on the floor next to her with a used condom had been blue and “I remember this because you [Kodwa] had been wearing the hotel robe loosely that morning”, her letter read, in part.
The Sunday Times reported that not only had she never gone to the police, she may actually have tried to extort Kodwa to pay for her silence.
He said on Sunday that the letter “was riddled with “false accusations” and he labelled it a “dangerous attempt at political blackmail and manipulation”.
He continued in his statement: “At the outset, I deny these accusations with the contempt they deserve. I refuse to succumb to extortion and blackmail. Most importantly, I refuse to bow down to dirty tricks by cowards operating from factional dark corners, using women to fight or neutralise me.
“Most tragically, I detest the use of such serious societal maladies such as rape, sexual harassment, and women abuse to simply achieve narrow factional and political ends. It is an insult to the women of this country and the fight against women abuse.
Duarte had advised the woman that the ANC “does not have the capacity to [investigate] that kind of thing”.
“The allegation is this happened in a private function, so we really cannot go beyond the advice that we have given her at this time. Finding the relevant facts is the work of the criminal justice system.”
Last week Mabe was meant to have been reinstated as the party’a spokesman after an internal inquiry found him not guilty of sexual harassment. His personal assistant, Kgoerano Kekana, however, subsequently expressed deep dissatisfaction at both the way the inquiry had been conducted and its findings.
The ANC decided not to reinstate him in his job after Kekana is understood to have opened a criminal case against him.
She had earlier accused the ANC’s grievance panel of demonstrating “toxic masculinity, misogyny, and patriarchy”, finding it insulting that Mabe had theorised her complaint was politically motivated.
Pule Mabe and Zizwi Kodwa. Photo: The Citizen
Kekana said only one of the eight witnesses who would have corroborated her accusation that she had been repeatedly harassed by Mabe was called before the panel.
“Incredibly, I was not informed when this one witness was called and I thus have no knowledge of what she said. The report merely states her name but nothing about her evidence,” Kekana said.
“Not only is this an affront towards women, it gives further courage to abusive men to bully female subordinates,” she said.
