Codesa summit can empower opposition

Opposition parties should get together to give an undertaking to the SA electorate via a declaration of intent, writes from Nelson Mandela Bay.

OSandy Johnston

pposition parties should get together to give an undertaking to the SA electorate, via a declaration of intent (DOI), that should they jointly represent a parliamentary majority after the 2019 general elections, they will initiate it. It will give effect to a Codesa-type summit to change our democratic dispensation (it goes without saying the talked-about “economic Codesa” will be an integral part of the summit).

The main objectives will be to ensure: never again will a president be able to subvert our democratic institutions to bullet-proof himself against investigation and prosecution (via his surrogates in the intelligence services, the NPA, the Saps, etc.); never again will a president so totally control sitting MPs that they become a “lock-upand-go” parliament (the “party list” system must be replaced by a constituency-based system).

We owe our media a huge vote of thanks for their unstinting work in comprehensively exposing the dirty tricks of the Guptas, aided and abetted at every turn by President Jacob Zuma, his Cabinet and heads and board members of SOEs.

The parties to the DOI must undertake to do everything humanly and legally possible to reverse the corrupt awarding of mineral rights and dodgy contracts to SOE suppliers.

This will unavoidably include cases against Zuma, the Guptas and their henchmen in the corridors of political power, as well as in the SOEs.

The South African people will accept nothing less.