Tutu has gone overboard in slamming party – Asmal

By Anna Majavu

This article was first published in the Sowetan Newspaper on April 3, 2009. See link below on accessing the Sowetan website.

ANC stalwart and former cabinet minister Kader Asmal says Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu “has gone over the top” in his criticism of the ruling party.

Asmal said from his hospital bed in Cape Town yesterday that while he empathised with Tutu’s concerns, he felt the cleric had gone overboard in his criticism.

“It is always correct to ask a mass movement what it stands for, particularly one that has meant so much to South Africa,” he said.

He said the ANC must rid itself of the “selfishness, self-aggrandisement and attempts to obtain power by all means and go back to the value system that drove us in the liberation struggle”.

But despite this, he said he would never make such “over the top statements like Tutu”.

In his recent attack on the ANC during a TV interview, Tutu reminded the party’s leaders that they had power but were not God.


Tutu was responding to the government’s decision not to allow Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to attend a peace conference in South Africa.

Tutu also said he was not looking forward to having ANC president Jacob Zuma as the country’s next president.


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