- Zweli Mkhize said the arrest of former President Jacob Zuma should have been 'handled differently'.
- He said the ANC should take responsibility for the good and bad of the Zuma years.
- Mkhize received an endorsement from five branches in eThekwini to contest the ANC presidency.
ANC presidential hopeful and former health minister Zweli Mkhize has bemoaned the treatment of former President Jacob Zuma and has come out to dismiss the notion of the "nine wasted years" under the former leader.
He was speaking to ANC branch members at an event hosted by the Blessing Ninela Zone in eThekwini on Saturday, where he received an endorsement to contest the ANC presidential race.
Mkhize told supporters and allies that he believed the events leading up to the July unrest in 2021 following Zuma's incarceration for contempt of court could have been handled differently.
"All one is saying, we need to always take the various concerns of various communities, those sensitivities can unravel what we see [as] a stable country simply because we are not sensitive to the feelings people have," he said.
More than 350 people died in the unrest that followed the incarceration of Zuma last July in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Mkhize's move to bat for Zuma in a public forum comes as ANC regional leaders in KwaZulu-Natal conceded that the party's denouncement of Zuma cost them support in the 2021 municipal elections.
They had travelled to Nkandla, seeking Zuma's support and counsel ahead of the ANC's provincial conference scheduled for next weekend.
Mkhize said he believed the ANC had to take responsibility for the good and bad of the Zuma years.
He said:
Mkhize said many of those who were in government under Zuma were still in office years later.
He further lamented the state of factionalism in the party, saying it would spill over into the State.
ANC branch leaders from the Blessing Ninela Zone in eThekwini which includes areas such as Bothas Hill endorsed Mkhize for the ANC top job. This is the second public endorsement Mkhize received for the ANC presidency. Earlier this year, the ANC's Ward 1 branch - one of the biggest in the eThekwini region- publicly endorsed his bid for the party presidency.
Mkhize said he would not comment on the endorsement outside of formal ANC nomination processes.
ANC eThekwini regional executive committee member, Siphiwe Blose, told supporters that Mkhize would be the incoming president of the party.
The Blessing Ninela zone of the ANC includes five branches whose leaders said all support Mkhize.
"We will carry Khabazela (Mkhize's clan name) to December," a branch leader said to applause.