TOP GUNS TAKE AIM AT ZUMA

SEEKING A SOLUTION: FORMER LEADERS GATHER National dialogue in Braamfontein includes three former heads of state.

Three former SA presidents have taken a collective stand about the crisis the country finds itself in. They called on the people to reclaim the future from a Jacob Zuma regime that is failing dismally.

Former president Kgalema Motlanthe called the nation to action at a national dialogue held in Braamfontein Johannesburg yesterday, that was attended by former heads of state Thabo Mbeki and FW de Klerk.

Motlanthe said historical moments like the one South Africa found itself in called for the highest possible self-consciousness.

Motlanthe said that national self-consciousness was a bulwark against threats to our shared national vision.

Motlanthe referred to the motivating reasons of the organisers for setting up the dialogue as part of an inner impulse to grapple with the problem rather than merely succumb to blunt indifference.

“This kind of thought and action amounts to more than citizenship,” he said.

Motlanthe said it “should reassure all of us as South Africans to retain the inner flame of human agency” that we are capable of and to “reclaim the future for which generations before us have dedicated their lives at a great cost”.

Mbeki said in his address that the dialogue had resolved “that something needs to be done as urgently as possible” to resolve the current crisis.

He said the response must include the involvement of “our people as a whole”.

A document of action should be drawn up and “should also respect the spirit of our constitution whatever amendments it might propose”, he said.

Former deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said the country was currently in need of leadership that could help to restore lost values.

In turn, De Klerk said “the problems that confront us do not arise from the constitution but from our failure to observe its guiding values.

“The core problem is that our president is not carrying out his duties in terms of section 83 of the constitution,” he said.

De Klerk said Zuma has undermined the independence of Chapter 9 institutions and organs. –