Mohamed Ameen Dabhelia – 2016/04/14

The ANC’s Youth, Women’s and Veterans’ leagues in Gauteng say South Africans should accept President Jacob Zuma’s apology and let him finish his term of office.

The party has warned against creating a trend of removing presidents, saying the ruling party did not need to help the opposition’s in what they’ve called a “dirty agenda”.

The party’s Mbali Hlope told Radio Islam the leagues have analysed the politics at play.

“What I mean by this is that we looked at both what’s happening externally as far as the global politics and what seems to be a calculated attack by Western Forces on ‘BRICS’ country’s in particular.”

She says that a prime example is what is happening in Brazil at the moment where their President Dilma Rousseff is facing a pending impeachment battle.

“You’ll know that Brazil is going through a similar thing that we are going through in the country, issues of downgrading, but also calls for the impeachment of the President.”

Hlope says South Africa is a country with a young democracy and that it’s natural for anybody to make a mistake.
Earlier this month, president Jacob Zuma apologised to the nation after the Constitutional Court found he failed to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution.

Meanwhile Political Analyst Ralph Mathekga says the arguments made by the ANC structures is thin and has no basis.
“It’s not really a convincing case, that when something like this happens, I mean this is consistently showing to have been a ‘home grown’ problem, something like ‘Nkandla’.”

Mathekga says he’s not surprised that the leagues have taken this consistent position of defending President Jacob Zuma.
“One thing that seems to be clear to me about this is the patterns of factions within the ANC about this Nkandla issue is consistent with the patterns of the factions that have actually been seen when President Jacob Zuma was elected for the second time in Mangaung.”

All three leagues says it’s critical to protect the ruling party’s unity and vowed to present a united front in Port Elizabeth at the weekend, where Zuma will be launching the party’s manifesto for the August 3rd local government elections.

Twitter: @thedabhelia

(Edited By Faizel Patel)