Maimane puts EC tour on ice ahead of March for Change
DA LEADER Mmusi Maimane has called off his tour to the Eastern Cape, which was due to begin tomorrow, as a result of recent political events.
This was confirmed by his spokesman Mabine Seabi yesterday, adding that it would be postponed to a date still to be decided.
Maimane was supposed to touch down at East London Airport tomorrow morning for a busy schedule in Buffalo City Metro.
The visit was part of Maimane’s #Change2019 national tour which started last month as the official opposition prepares for general elections in 2019.
But that is now on hold while Maimane invests his energies in the March for Change campaign scheduled for Friday in light of President Jacob Zuma’s recent sacking of former finance minister Pravin Gordhan and deputy Mcebisi Jonas.
According to Maimane, the march was a priority after being “inundated with requests from a host of concerned citizens” as part of the “growing movement calling for Jacob Zuma to be removed as president of South Africa”.
The march will take place through the streets of Johannesburg on Friday – a day declared as a shutdown of the country by all anti-Zuma groupings.
The DA’s leader at the provincial legislature, Bobby Stevenson, said the postponement promised the tour would be rescheduled for a later date.
In a further development yesterday, the DA filed an urgent high court application to set aside and declare unlawful the axing of Gordhan and Jonas.
Zuma’s decision to fire them was invalid‚ irrational and unconstitutional‚ the party argued in an affidavit submitted to the North Gauteng High Court. DA MP James Selfe‚ and chairman of the party’s Federal Executive‚ said in his affidavit that the implications of Zuma’s decision to fire the two ministers were of an “extraordinarily serious and far reaching nature”.
He highlighted the impact the decision had on the economy of South Africa‚ including the country’s downgrading to junk status by ratings agency S&P.
Selfe said he was approaching the court to reinstate Gordhan and Jonas because “the exercise of every public power is subject to the principal of legality” and such power needed to be exercised for “legitimate government purposes and exercised on the correct facts”.
The court application said Zuma had relied on a dubious intelligence report to make his decision.
He also argued that Zuma’s cabinet reshuffle could not be seen as an attempt at improving efficiency because ministers Faith Muthambi and Bathabile Dlamini had not been axed‚ despite severe problems in their respective portfolios of communications and social development.
Zuma‚ Gordhan‚ Jonas and newly appointed Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba and his deputy Sfiso Buthelezi are named as the respondents in the urgent application. — TMG