Factions Tearing S. Africa’s ANC Apart, Treasurer General Says

(Bloomberg) -- Factions within South Africa’s African National Congress are threatening to tear apart the party which has governed the country since the end of apartheid in 1994, according to its Treasurer General, Zweli Mkhize.

“There is need for leadership to dismantle factions which are tearing apart the organisation and urgently work to rebuild unity and deal with differences which play out in the open,” Mkhize said in an emailed statement. “It is a challenge leadership has to address.”

Jacob Zuma, who’s due to step down as ANC leader in December and as the nation’s president in 2019, has survived a series of corruption scandals and presided over the party’s worst-electoral performance since in 1994 in municipal elections held in August.

The president’s decision to fire Pravin Gordhan as finance minister and make 19 other changes to his administration on March 31 drew widespread criticism, prompted S&P Global Ratings to downgrade the nation’s credit rating to junk and weakened the rand. Fitch Ratings Ltd. followed suit on Friday, sending the currency to its weakest level since January.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alastair Reed at areed12@bloomberg.net.