Wat het ’n jong Cyril destyds gedink?

The media have focussed on one aspect of your political personality by saying you have “consummate skills in negotiation". How are you going to use this particular skill to unify the ANC – not on the basis of hardliners and moderates, but as an organisation which contains people from different historic and political backgrounds?

Well, I think one should not make the mistake of looking at me in the way that the press has done. Because they, for reasons best known to themselves, are building up an image around me which is not necessarily correct. I am a person who works best in a collective, and the skills that I have unfold best in a collective, rather than in the individualistic way that the press is attempting to describe the way I work.

To answer your question more directly, there are obviously different strands within the ANC and these strands complement each other. And if one looks at the principle of collective work, saamspan and all that, then you find that one is part of a dynamic leadership, and whatever skills we all have, complement each other to produce the best results for our country...