Faizel Randera speaks during a press conference by ANC stalwarts held at the Anglican church in Parktown, 10 January 2017. Picture - Neil McCartney
As thousands march again to the Union Buildings on Wednesday to reiterate the call for President Jacob Zuma to resign, ANC stalwarts are warning the party will be punished at the ballot box if it doesn’t start listening.
“If the ANC does not create unity based on the wellbeing and development of our country in the interests of all of our people, it will be punished by the very people who supported our movement during the fight against apartheid and at the ballot box, but who now question if we are still fit to lead,” the stalwarts said in a statement on Tuesday.
The stalwarts are a group of more than 100 veterans of the apartheid struggle who lead the ANC through its darkest days and are now back for what seems to be round two.
Nenegate was fast followed by the midnight cabinet reshuffle ousting Pravin Gordhan and driving South Africans into the streets last week, again today and will again on Friday.
“There is little doubt, despite the repeated mantra ‘there is no crisis’, that the crisis our country, our people and the ANC face is deep,” the group said on Tuesday in a statement.
“The crisis and those who have created it reaches deep into the very fabric of our society and is based on an unquenchable need for power and money.”
ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu, secretary-general Gwede Mantashe and Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa added their voices to the clamour for Zuma’s resignation and for a moment, some began to believe he would go – until Zuma cracked his whip, and they returned to the fold.
On April 2, newly-installed Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba promised the country he intended to “implement the policies of the ANC, as articulated in conference resolutions, in the 2014 election manifesto, and in the president’s pronouncements”.
On April 3, Standard & Poors rating agency rattled South Africa with an investment downgrade, followed by Fitch Ratings on April 7, which downgraded both our local and international credit ratings. Global financial giant JP Morgan this week announced it will drop SA’s investment grade bonds at the end of this month.
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