Danger to Khosa a danger to us all

IN CASE I do not make it to the no-confidence debate on August 8 2017, Mr President, know that your stay as president haunts South Africans.

“The attempt to silence me has made me value the few days left. Hence, I am addressing you, Mr President.

“Please Mr President, step down. South Africa no longer needs you. Please save South Africa! Save the economy!”

These were the words of ANC MP Dr Makhosi Khoza reported from a speech she gave on Mandela Day at an event organised by the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation and Save South Africa.

Khoza is the MP from KwaZuluNatal who is so fed up with the unprincipled actions of the ANC in parliament and its president that she has been willing to put her life on the line.

Evidently Khoza can no longer stomach the lies behind the ANC’s attempt to defy the spirit of the constitution and force its MPs to blindly and unethically vote to support a man who has no loyalty – not to the ANC or to the country.

“I have been a slave of my president’s lies for too long,” Khoza said in her speech.

I wish many more ANC MPs were just as tired of being used as disposable factotums.

The track record of President Jacob Zuma is there for all to see – in the corruption of Nkandla, in the findings of the Constitutional Court, in the monumental abuses of state capture and in the way that he uses one pliable useful idiot after another and then disposes of them without so much as a second thought. Ask Julius Malema. Yet lo and behold, the ANC still orders its MPs to vote in his favour.

It remains to be seen how long these MPs will be willing to be reduced and disrespected in this way.

Khoza is surely not the only one who has had enough.

The “narrative developed” to blatantly override constitution in favour of a criminal elite is violently undemocratic and unpatriotic.

“The ANC and its parliamentary caucus has been on record that its stance on the upcoming motion of no-confidence in President Zuma by the opposition in parliament is that we will not vote with the opposition in favour of such a motion,” ANC Jackson Mthembu was quoted saying last week in a report titled “Mthembu blasts ANC MP Khoza for ‘publicity spree’.”

As always, the ANC tries to paint opposition parties as the enemy.

Yet this time the enemy is within the ruling party – it is presented by those who have sold the country to the Guptas and those who are willing to continue doing so.

The ruling by the Constitutional Court, that the allegiance of MPs is first to the country and the constitution is conveniently ignored.

Instead ANC MPs are reduced to voting cattle, forced to ignore their own consciences in a downward spiral of subservience to brazen, unashamed looters.

Now we have an MP in a supposedly democratic country stating “in case I do not make it …”.

It is a matter of public record Khoza has received numerous death threats. Parliament has reportedly linked these to Khoza’s role as chair of the public service and administration portfolio committee.

However, a widely circulated screen grab from Khoza’s phone links the threats to her public declaration that she will be voting with her conscience in the upcoming vote of no-confidence in Zuma.

It is utterly unacceptable that an MP in post-apartheid South Africa is now feeling so insecure that she is entertaining the possibility of her demise.

That alone should elicit a deafening outcry from all South Africans. It is shameful, horrific and unconscionable that we have been brought so low! Yet what do we have? Loud calls from within the ANC for Khoza to be charged rather than impassioned condemnation of the political thuggery of the death threats being issued.

“You have Gupta e-mails, over 20 000 of them. Nobody is saying those people are going to be fired,” Khoza reportedly said in response to calls for her to face the ANC disciplinary committee.

The victimisation of the upright beggars belief.

However, the fact that Khoza has been faced with the possibility death may just be a reflection of a far greater death – that of the ANC.

At such a juncture what we need to be very aware of, is how toxic the political space in South Africa has become.

The rising number of politicallyrelated assassinations throughout the country, including this province is testament to this.

In KwaZulu-Natal is the problem is so chronic that advocate Marumo Moerane was appointed last year to head a commission of inquiry into the situation.

Whilst it is admirable for Khoza to exhibit the kind of bravery she has, the potential of the threat against her should not be underestimated.

But the danger she is in is not limited to the brave and vocal. It hits the heart of our nation. As South Africans one and all, we are in real danger.