ANC: No reason for Ramaphosa to debate Maimane
Updated | By Thabo Tshabalala
The African National Congress (ANC) has refuted claims that President Cyril Ramaphosa will participate in a presidential debate with Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane.
On Tuesday the DA confirmed that Maimane did receive an invitation to participate in a debate on the SABC’s Big Debate show.
Maimane’s spokesperson Azola Mboniswa said: “It is high time that we debate real solutions to grow our economy, create jobs, eradicate corruption, ensure quality healthcare, and keep our citizens safe, and this provides an ideal opportunity to demonstrate to South Africans the differences between the policy offers of the DA and the ANC.”
But the ANC elections head Fikile Mbalula says while they were invited to the debate, the show only requested a senior member of the ruling party and not Ramaphosa specifically.
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"We are invited on the 28 to a big debate and they wanted a senior leader of the ANC, so we are fielding our national chairperson (Gwede Mantashe) to be part of that debate.
"There has never been an issue about it, we settled at that particular level and that's it.”
Mbalula says there 48 political parties contesting the elections nationally there is no reason why the ANC should debate only the DA.
"We got political parties contesting the elections if we were to have a discussion why should we single out the DA, or which bases and debate with them, there are 48 political parties.
"Our president attended the signing of the electoral code of conduct equally to other parties, other parties didn't send their leaders in that signing ceremony we didn't feel small about it.
"We have been participating in debates and we will continue to field our leaders not even according to the structure of their elected positions."
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