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Staunch supporters of President Jacob Zuma threw their weight behind him despite the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) throwing out his attempts to stop the National Prosecuting Authority instituting charges against him.
Zuma’s allies in the ANC also lambasted those criticising ANC presidential candidate Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s campaign by linking her to the president.
One of Zuma’s staunchest backers, Kebby Maphatsoe, president of the uMkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) and deputy minister of the department of Military Veterans, told City Press on the sidelines of a rally in Soweto on Saturday that Zuma was not corrupt.
He said it was up to the NPA to decide Zuma’s fate.
“We respect the judiciary and the outcome. But the fact of the matter is that there was a plot against Zuma by those people and they never wanted him to become president. There is no corruption on the part of Zuma.”
“What we will do now is leave it to the NPA to process the matter. But we believe that the intention then was to disadvantage him so that he did not become president.
"The NPA has not charged Zuma so he is innocent until proven guilty and he must be treated like any other citizen.”
Dlamini-Zuma was herself on a campaign trail in Limpopo.
Maphatsoe told those attending the rally in Moletsane, Soweto, that opponents have tried to demonise Dlamini-Zuma and he called for her to be defended.
“She has said nothing wrong (when she speaks about radical economic transformation). Let’s defend her.”
Febe Potgieter-Qubule, who had been touted as deputy secretary general under Cyril Ramaphosa’s campaign, put her weight behind Dlamini-Zuma.
She defined Dlamini-Zuma’s policies as land redistribution, free education, skills revolution, women emancipation, youth development and rural development.
“Those of us who were old enough to vote in 1994 know that our political freedom is becoming hollow without economic freedom and that is what we mean by our radical economic transformation,” she said.
Potgieter-Qubule said that in Dlamini-Zuma, the ANC had someone that could implement policies.
She said the ANC December elective conference was going to be difficult and only discipline would carry it through.
“We should not allow our conferences to go into chaos because certain people cannot find their way,” she said.
Another Zuma backer, Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane, said the ANC was not a “stokvel” where benefits are exchanged in a determined pattern and the next person waits in the row.
In an indirect reference to those who argued Ramaphosa should succeed Zuma as per ANC “tradition”, Mokonyane said the only “tradition” she knew was that all members of the national executive committee (NEC) step down at the conference and an independent electoral commission takes over.
After that anyone had a right to be elected to any position including president, she said.
“When they say we have a slate that is factional it is because we choose our preferred leaders,” she said.
There is nowhere where Zuma is supposed to hand over to anybody, Mokonyane said.
“This is not a relay and it is wrong even if it is repeated by a senior leader in the ANC. There was never a conference that said deputy must become president,” she said.
She said it is also sexist to say that when voting for Dlamini-Zuma that will create a Zuma dynasty.
“We are not interested in personal issues of other people in the ANC. Who knows how many ex’s some of them have. So we must condemn any form of sexism”.
Dlamini-Zuma joined the ANC alone and when women join the ANC no one asked who they are dating or who is the father of their child, she said.
Mokonyane said even after Dlamini-Zuma and Zuma divorced people still have a problem.
“But they are not enemies and they are both members of the ANC,” she said.
She said the ANC’s weaknesses could not be blamed on any individual, seen as a reference to complaints among the Gauteng ANC leaders that Zuma’s scandals were behind the party’s electoral decline in the province durinf the municipal elections last year.
“We are weak because there was a time when others thought being an ANC member was a ticket to become a councillor”.
Mokonyane said gatekeeping also weakened the ANC.
