THE SA Communist Party (SACP) says that it expects the special ANC national executive committee (NEC) meeting on Monday to instruct former President Jacob Zuma to go jail and serve his sentence as ordered by the apex court.
Members of the party’s highest decision-making body were meeting to deal with the tense political situation in Nkandla because it regarded the events unfolding at the former president’s homestead as a matter of national importance.
ANC deputy Secretary-General Jessie Duarte is expected to brief the media on the outcomes of the special NEC meeting that took place on Monday.
The party’s initial NEC meeting was expected to convene on Friday last week but was postponed.
Solly Mapaila, the SACP first deputy General Secretary, said that as much it was sad to see Zuma to go to jail this would reaffirm the centrality of the Constitution and the rule of law.
Mapaila said the SACP also reaffirms its support for the mandate and work of the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture as established by ‘Zuma when he was the President of the Republic’.
“We also call on the ANC to speedily address internal problems that are now threatening its legacy of revolutionary struggle. These problems are now opening up into a crisis,” said Mapaila.
“We reject the reckless statements made by Carl Niehaus on possible violence and we characterise this as extremely irresponsible and we distance ourselves from it.”
On Sunday, SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande warned against the incitement of a ‘civil war’ in KwaZulu-Natal.
“We strongly condemn the groupings and individuals who are inciting violence to undermine our constitution. As things stand, we have not recovered in every respect from the consequences of apartheid violence, including the violence the apartheid regime sponsored through its surrogates,” said Nzimande.
Nzimande was addressing a virtual rally to launch the SA Communist Party’s 100th anniversary celebrations.
“Let the name of the MK not be allowed to be used to pursue what essentially is a counter-revolutionary agenda. We say this because we know what war is. Let’s not play with war, because war is deadly.”
After last week’s contempt of court judgment, Zuma was ordered to surrender himself to police by Sunday to start serving his 15-month prison sentence.
However, an application for a stay of his arrest will now be heard in the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
Zuma seeks to stay the implementation of the orders for his arrest and committal to prison, which the police have until Wednesday to act on.
The former president has also applied to the Constitutional Court to rescind its earlier judgment.
ANC NEC member and Deputy Minister of State Security Zizi Kodwa said the former president and every member of the party should respect the rule of law, Constitution and the independence of the judiciary.
“We must all appreciate the supremacy of the rule of law and the Constitution of the republic. There’s no question of the supremacy of the Constitution, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary,” Kodwa told eNCA on Monday night.
“The ANC has no role to interfere with the functioning of the judiciary, including the outcomes of the high courts or the Concourt.”
Police Minister Bheki Cele and Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole have been ordered by the court to facilitate the arrest.
“We don’t have crisis of time, but also we hope that we will be getting the clarification because when we were given the instruction, there were no other legal activities taking place,” said Cele on Monday.
Addressing journalists at his rural homestead on Sunday, Zuma lashed out at the Constitutional Court judges who last week gave him a 15-month jail term for absconding from a corruption inquiry and compared them to the white minority apartheid rulers he once fought.
“The judges who are supposed to protect me took my rights away, that means they are conspiring with this certain judge. I then decided I’m not going back to the State Capture Commission or even present myself to the judges.”
“The fact that I was lambasted with a punitive jail sentence without trial should engender shock in all those who believe in freedom and the rule of law … I fought and went to prison so there must be justice and the rule of law. No honest person can accuse me of being against the rule of law,” Zuma told journalists.
- Inside Politics
