PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa has weighed in on the tensions between him and the suspended African National Congress Secretary-General Ace Magashule, saying proceedings were under way to resolve disputes within the party and that “the ANC would come out stronger”.
Ramaphosa was responding to questions during an interview with FRANCE 24’s Marc Perelman on the sidelines of the Financing of African Economies Summit hosted by President Emmanuel Macron.
Perelman asked the presidentif he took the attempt by suspended Magashule to suspended him as president from the ANC seriously.
“There is no real substance to those things. It is a person who is himself facing criminal charges and will seek to find ways to defend himself. You know when you are president, you are attacked by anybody. I carry on with my work,” he said.
As South Africa’s former president Jacob Zuma faces corruption charges, Ramaphosa vowed that he would have a fair trial.
He brushed aside Zuma’s claim that the trial was a political witch hunt and said that he would soon appear before a commission of inquiry looking into the so-called state capture scandal.
Ramaphosa responded: “I think, you know, he would want to say that. But it isn’t [a witch-hunt]. He knows very well that our justice system is a fair justice system and our democracy is a robust democracy that enables all of these things to happen. There will be a fair trial, there will be a fair process but not only former president Zuma will have to go through [it] but anyone who is found to be needing to go through a process like this.”
Ramaphosa was also questioned about Zuma’s refusal to appear before the Zondo commission, despite a Constitutional Court ruling compelling him to do so.
“The commission has asked him to appear and he has given his reasons why he won’t go, and the party he belongs to has pledged its support to the commission. The matter is now before the court and I prefer to leave all that view and judgment before the court,” he said.
Ramaphosa also told Perelman that the situation in Gaza reminds him of the apartheid era in his own country, with Israeli actions against the Palestinians evocative of an apartheid state.
He said South Africa stands by the Palestinians but urged both sides to sit down and negotiate as was done in South Africa in the early 1990s.
Ramaphosa also hailed the outcome of the African financing summit in Paris on Tuesday, stressing that rich countries had been urged to share their surpluses of Covid-19 vaccines with developing countries.
He also lashed out at what he called the “vaccine imperialism” currently at work, warning that the only way to vanquish the pandemic was to deal with it globally.
He went on to say that waiving the intellectual property rights on Covid-19 vaccines would help boost manufacturing capabilities on the continent and acknowledged that authorities are closely monitoring the advent of a third wave of Covid-19, adding that new restrictions would be put in place if need be.
- Inside Politics with additional reporting by France 24
