Former president Jacob Zuma is working tirelessly to plunge the ANC into disarray, according to Deputy Minister of State Security Zizi Kodwa.
Zizi was speaking to Sunday World on the sidelines of the first day of the ruling party’s 55th National Conference at the Nasrec Expo Centre near Soweto on Friday.
“President Zuma is the former president of the ANC and the former president of the republic. He schooled us, among others, when we were young that a sitting president of the ANC must be protected and defended,” said Kodwa.
“We defended him when he was a president, because that’s what we were educated and schooled in the ANC. Our appeal to president Zuma is that he must allow the incumbent president, Cyril Ramaphosa, to do what he also did as the president of the ANC.”
Kodwa’s comments come in the aftermath of a decision on Thursday night by the Jacob Zuma Foundation to institute a private prosecution bid against Ramaphosa.
The foundation released a statement saying Ramaphasa is being charged as an accessory for breaching the provisions of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Act. The matter relates to the case that Zuma is pursuing, alleging that the leading prosecutor in the matter, advocate Billy Downer, acted in malice when he allegedly released his medical records to Media 24 journalist Karyn Maughan.
Kodwa slammed the move on the grounds that Zuma is disingenuous and using all the tricks in the book to collapse the ruling party’s elective conference.
“We think that the timing of the so-called private prosecution is a well-orchestrated political plan to influence the outcome of this conference. It is just so sad that it comes from a former president that this ANC has defended and rallied behind.
“It is unfortunate and disappointing that a former president of the organisation can be at the centre of what could be an issue that wants to plunge the ANC and this conference into disarray,” said Kodwa.
Zuma has been hard at work addressing various branches in KwaZulu-Natal not to adopt any reports during the conference as a form of protest. On Thursday, Zuma received a hostile reception from delegates during his walkabout at the accreditation centre.
In a statement on Friday, the Presidency said the matter has been referred to the minister of justice, who has oversight of the NPA.
“President Ramaphosa promptly responded to Mr Zuma’s letter indicating steps he had taken, including referring the matter to the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Ronald Lamola, who bears the oversight responsibility over the NPA,” the Presidency said.
“President Ramaphosa does not interfere in the work of the NPA, nor does he have the power to do so. The president responded to Mr Zuma and took appropriate and legally permissible action.”
In a tweet on Friday, Carl Niehaus, who was expelled from the ruling party this week, said now that Ramaphosa has been charged, he must step aside.
“In terms of his own rules, stipulating that those who have been charged with a crime must ‘step aside’, Ramaphosa must now step aside. There can be no selective justice. What is true for the goose must be true for the gander,” wrote Niehaus.
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