Durban - The ANC’s Mervyn Dirks says he does not see his return to public office as an election gimmick by the ANC, after being sworn in as a Member of the Provincial Legislature (MPL) in Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday.
Dirks made headlines when he defied the party’s orders last year, along with Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, and voted for the implementation of the Phala Phala panel report, which would have paved the way for President Cyril Ramaphosa to face impeachment.
When he resigned in January as an MP, there were rumours that he had been forced to do so, after Ramaphosa had won his second term as party president at the elective conference in Nasrec in December last year.
There have been suggestions in some quarters that his recall to public office with the elections looming next year is due to the ANC attempting to show a united front in a bid to remain in power.
Speaking to The Mercury yesterday while in Port Edward as part of a multiparty oversight visit, Dirks, who is also a former councillor and Msunduzi deputy mayor, dismissed suggestions he had been brought back to bolster the governing party’s efforts before the polls.
“First, it is important to stress that I resigned on my own without any pressure or persuasion from any quarters this year. It is a decision in which there are no regrets,” said the MPL.
He insisted that the ANC was for everyone and all racial groups, and had a role to play in building the country, but acknowledged that the reforms announced by the government had played into the fears of minority groups.
“The truth is that the ANC support in the coloured community and among minorities is very low currently, but my being sworn in as an MPL is not an election gimmick,” said Dirks. He said minority groups should be actively involved in the country’s politics.
“The fact is coloureds should not see themselves as outsiders in the ANC because they are descendants of the Khoi San, among the oldest inhabitants on the continent,” Dirks said.
The MPL said his stance in the past in defying party orders had been based on principle and this would remain part of his character, but he would continue drumming up support for the ANC under Ramaphosa’s leadership in the build-up to next year’s elections.
He insisted that he would continue advocating for accountability from the executive, in the same way he had done in the past.
“The ANC is not about individuals and so if there are things that the executive needs to account for, I will call them to account, because in the end it is all about serving the people,” said Dirks.
He said that he had enjoyed time with his family, which included trying his luck in vegetable farming and attending to “nanny duties”.
“But the fact is that when the ANC calls you have to respond to the call because ultimately the ANC is about the people,” the MPL said.
Dirks, who replaced former Education MEC Kwazi Mshengu as an MPL, will attend his first sitting today and continue with his activities in Newcastle as part of the Conservation Portfolio Committee tomorrow.