SA troubles extend beyond Zuma
ALL ANC MPs who opposed the DA’s impeachment of the president motions in parliament were guilty of violating the SA constitution.
This was the view of DA leader Mmusi Maimane at the Daily Dispatch dialogues last night in the City Life Church, Quigney.
According to Maimane, believing that President Jacob Zuma was the only problem South Africa was facing was a grave error of judgment.
The republic, he said, faced a problem the size of the entire ANC caucus in parliament, which he said was made up of individuals seeking self-enrichment.
Even the heated ANC NEC meeting last weekend, which saw members coming close to exchanging blows discussing the future of Zuma, was just a cover.
“It was about the pursuit of institutional capture and about who captures strategic institutions of the state, not about Zuma,” said Maimane to a round of applause from what was predominantly a crowd clad in blue DA Tshirts.
“It was a crime that Jacob Zuma, who was found to have violated the constitution, on.”
In fact, he said, all who voted for Zuma to stay on during their several impeachment motions at the national assembly had also violated the constitution.
It was for this reason that Maimane believed there was a leadership crisis in South Africa.
The solution to such a crisis, he added, would not come from within the ANC but from outside.
As such, the DA had now adopted a stance of “a party in permanent election mode” to push for a coalition government post the 2019 general and provincial elections.
“The 2019 elections are on the cards because there is a genuine contestation in SA and we believe that the ANC may drop below 50% so we can step in to provide leadership and build an economy that will benefit all,” he said.
Maimane dismissed detractors who accused him of trying to move the DA away from its liberal stance.
If anything, it was the ANC that was “talking left but walking right”.
The 36-year-old politician slammed the SA government’s decision to pull out of the International Criminal Court still had his party keep him (ICC). This was because the move was “a withdrawal from our consensus we reached in 1994”.
The ICC may be accused of being obsessed with prosecuting only African heads of state, said Maimane, but that was not a good enough reason for South Africa to pull out.
“Are there many criminals in the world? Yes. Are all those criminals being tried? No.
“But we need not stop the ICC from prosecuting those who have committed crimes and got fingered for their crimes,” he said.
Asked his views on the DA’s failure to make inroads in rural areas at the same pace as in urban areas, Maimane said his party had managed to bring people of different races under one roof, and that it would in the near future, when the infrastructure allowed, do the same to different classes. —