SA, not ANC, comes first

SO THE president of the republic has – by his own admission – shown he has little regard for the oath of office in which he undertook to uphold and protect the constitution.

President Jacob Zuma has been reported to have said he regards the ANC to be more important than the state. There has not been denials, as has often been the case in such instances.

Instead, we have had many including his spokesman, venturing to explain what the president meant when he said the party comes before the state; that there was a context to the utterances.

So the president, we presume it safe to say, was not misquoted.

The spokesman tried to explain it all away by saying the president had made the statement in his capacity as president of the party.

We regard it all as spin meant to whitewash a grave error by the president.

Zuma might owe his ascendancy to the highest political office in the land to his party but the pledge of office he made was to the people of this country and therefore the nation, not the party, should come first.

Our argument is also that there wouldn ’ t be a party to start with had there been no country.

The president would probably be the last person who needs to be reminded that the party, whose centenary we celebrated a few years ago, was born the SOUTH AFRICAN Natives National Congress in 1912.

Note the emphasis on South Africa. It morphed into the current ANC, a movement founded by the people to tackle the problems facing the people of this country, more so those who were excluded as the greedy parked themselves around the table.

Were the ANC a human being, it would probably declare itself loyal to the people, the country and therefore the people ’ s constitution. Putting the people, first, not itself.

It fought, along with many others who are unfortunately being unwisely erased by the governing elite from the pages of history as is the wont of the victors, who often can ’ t resist the temptation to retell history as they see and deem fit.

But history has a way of telling the real story anyway, and will correct the wrongs, eventually.

A lesson that needs to be learnt out of this gaffe is that the president is the leader of the nation at all times, not only when he or the party feel like it.

The presidency that he holds is not a light switch that the party can flick on and off at a whim. That is why when it needed to fire one of its own from that esteemed office, he took the trouble to address the people on television and radio and bid them farewell.

For it was the people, and the country that mattered and came first.

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