President Zuma must shoulder responsibility

Consultative conference would solve challenges

IN ITS 104-year history, the ANC has had three landmark Consultative Conferences.

All three have played a significant role in uniting the ANC. And all three were presided over by OR Tambo.

The 1969, Tanzania Morogoro Conference unified and co-ordinated the ANC partners around the armed struggle.

The 1985, Kabwe, Zambia, Conference was used by OR Tambo to address, boldly and decisively, the issues of factionalism, ethnicity, gossip, corruption and abuse of ANC resources.

The 1990 meeting co-ordinated and unified four ANC structures, namely the exiles, jailed, armed struggle and mass movement leaderships before the 1990 elections and 1991 ANC elective conference.

As the ANC faces death, why not now?

And, I am sure if OR was still alive, he would have opted for it to solve the current ANC challenges. THABANI KHUMALO

Durban PRESIDENT Zuma cut a pathetic figure in Parliament recently.

If you did not know the history of the man, you could almost have felt sorry for him. Gone was the giggle, the laugh, the jive and the bravado.

A dejected, solemn-faced Zuma implored Parliament to protect him from the abuse he suffers every time he appears in the house. Is he like King Lear, “a man/ more sinn’d against than sinning”?

But he comes nowhere near the tragic figure of Lear who, in his madness, showed great insight into human weaknesses like power, greed and vanity.

But who should shoulder the blame and the responsibility for this sorry state of affairs – turning Parliament into a circus and bringing it into disrepute? Is it not he and his corrupt government who have made our country the laughing stock of the world?

Zuma once complained that he felt embarrassed when he was in the company of his African peers – the unruly behaviour and clowning that have now come to characterise this once great institution.

If he was a great leader of integrity and high moral values, would he suffer the insults and abuse he now encounters in Parliament?

Is he not the cause of the problem? He has broken his oath of office, violated the constitution and faces a litany of charges of corruption, fraud and money laundering.

If he was a respectable, trustworthy man, would opposition members demand that he produce proof of payment of the Nkandla money?

And, why would Julius Malema call him a criminal to his face? How could such a man still be in power and expect to be respected in Par- liament, by the nation and the world?

But he does not see himself as the problem. He has been spoilt by the ANC. When he erred, the ANC came to his aid, notably over the Nkandla saga.

Now, again, he cries foul like a schoolboy and wants protection in Parliament.

Instead of addressing the serious issues confronting Parliament, Speaker Baleka Mbete, wants to ring-fence Parliament and separate the public gallery from the chamber with a glass barricade.

Signs of a nervous regime burrowing itself into a hole?

But Parliament is not a playground for naughty boys.

He brought it upon himself and must face the consequences of his actions without flinching and complaining. He must answer to them. T MARKANDAN

Silverglen