Save SA lobbies ANC leaders to work with it to remove President Zuma
This is a leader the country does not deserve – Pityana
Sipho Pityana has been lobbying ANC leaders to work with his civil society movement, Save SA, in its latest bid to remove President Jacob Zuma.
“We are lobbying everybody to help us ensure that Jacob Zuma steps down,” Pityana, who is also an ANC veteran, told Sowetan yesterday.
“We recognise that the dice that will shift, is in the ANC because it is the ANC that nominated him as president and it is the ANC that has a majority in parliament. The majority of people in the ANC and alliance partners share that this is a leader that the country does not deserve,” he said
He, however, refused to reveal the names of ANC leaders who he had spoken to, saying: “We have spoken to everybody that we could. This is not a personal mission. We are a civil society organisation; remember, we made a call to get citizens to write to members of parliament.”
ANC Women’s League secretary-general Meokgo Matuba confirmed that some ANC leaders were working with Save SA. “We know them but they will not succeed,” Matuba said, avoiding giving names.
Earlier, speaking at a media briefing at Constitution Hill in Braamfontein yesterday, Pityana said their call for Zuma to step down as president of the Republic represents the broadest societal consensus to save the country from the brink.
Pityana said Zuma was at the heart of an “illegal anti-constitutional push to capture the state for and on behalf of a gangster family, their friends and their business associates”.
Save SA launched a set of six short-term demands to ensure that the integrity of state institutions was protected, and to also ensure the upholding of the rule of law and the constitution. It called for a commission of inquiry into state capture, and restoration of credible leadership in economic institutions that are at the frontline of a fight against corruption, among other things.
Ahmed Kathrada Foundation director Neeshan Balton called on MPs to put SA first when they vote in the motion of no confidence in Zuma soon.