Publications
Partners
Johannesburg - President Jacob Zuma is more focused on vested interests than the welfare of South Africans and should resign, former president Kgalema Motlanthe said.
Motlanthe, 67, said in interviews at Bloomberg’s Johannesburg office that a breakdown in the African National Congress’s democratic values under Zuma and a ruling by the Constitutional Court last year that he violated his oath of office by failing to repay taxpayer money on his Nkandla homestead showed that Zuma should no longer run the country.
“He doesn’t come across as someone who thinks about what is in the national interests or what is in the organisational interests, but seems to be driven by an agenda based on vested interests,” Motlanthe said. “That’s why to an observer there’s a measure of irrationality to what he does.”
Motlanthe, who served as president from September 2008 to May 2009, is the latest senior ANC official to criticize Zuma following his decision last week to fire Pravin Gordhan as finance minister and make sweeping changes to his cabinet. Zuma doesn’t understand how his actions can influence decisions by rating companies, and his actions showed a “recklessness” that ruined South Africa’s credibility, he said.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe and treasurer general Zweli Mkhize publicly questioned the manner in which the cabinet changes were handled. The trio make up half of the party’s committee of top officials. Jackson Mthembu, the ANC’s parliamentary chief whip, also criticised on Twitter the decision to fire Gordhan, while the South African Communist Party, which is in an alliance with the ANC, urged Zuma to quit.
The rand is the worst-performing currency against the dollar since March 27, the day Zuma demanded Gordhan be recalled from an investor roadshow in London ahead of being fired, weakening 7.9%.
WATCH: Interview with Motlanthe
Out of control
Senior leaders of the ANC are partly to blame for allowing Zuma to get out of control because they repeatedly defended his actions in the name of protecting the party, Motlanthe said.
“We seem to be in a situation where if he commits mistakes, the leadership of the ANC says we are defending the organisation and therefore countenance the mistakes under the guise of defending the organisation,” he said. “Over time they have countenanced his mistakes and actually defended him, and in the process they are complicit in the wrongdoing.”
Zuma’s spokesperson Bongani Ngqulunga didn’t respond to calls and text messages seeking comment.
While parliamentary Speaker Baleka Mbete said she’s considering a request to recall lawmakers to debate an opposition-sponsored motion of no confidence in Zuma, Motlanthe said the vote probably wouldn’t succeed because it was being driven by the opposition and most ANC members see defending the president as supporting the party. He later said on Bloomberg TV that “anything is possible.”
Image: President Jacob Zuma chats to then deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe at a service for the late Phyllis Naidoo. (Photo: GCIS)
‘Incorrigible people’
“The question today that confronts us is: ‘What do you do when the organisation is led by the most incorrigible people? How will the ANC save itself if it is led by the most incorrigible people?’” he said. “Incorrigibility means you don’t leave, you continue, so you don’t deal with the scandal that occurs today because tomorrow you are confronted by a new one, a fresh one. So it goes on and on.”
Motlanthe was secretary general of the ANC for a decade until 2007 and served as the country's deputy president under Zuma from 2009 to 2014. He unsuccessfully challenged Zuma for the leadership of the party in December 2012.
Motlanthe ruled out standing for election as ANC leader at the end of this year when Zuma is scheduled to step down, even if asked to run. The party leadership is no longer obeying its own constitution, he said, and the election could be rigged.
“No, I will not accept. I don’t think in that sense I belong to the ANC quite frankly,” he said. “I don’t see the value of joining crooked people. I think the way to relate to crooked people is to stay away from them.”
Read Fin24's top stories trending on Twitter: Fin24’s top stories
