'In case I do not make it on August 8, 2017'... - Khoza's message to Zuma
18 July 2017
Johannesburg – In case something happens to her, ANC MP Makhosi Khoza - whose life has been threatened for publicly calling on President Jacob Zuma to resign - wants Zuma to know this.
"In case I do not make it on August 8, 2017. Mr President you must know that you are haunting the South African nation. Please Mr President, step down.
"Mr President, 11 million South Africans voted for you, and not just one million ANC members. You may wish to contest the ANC presidency in December 2017, but South Africa no longer needs you, Mr President.
"Please save South Africa, save jobs Mr President, save the economy and save women… I cannot even say more about how much you have violated the country’s Constitution."
Khoza received loud applause and a standing ovation after she made her passionate plea.
Khoza, who is the chairperson of Parliament's public service and administration portfolio committee, was speaking at the Conference for the Future of South Africa, where civil society organisations have gathered to forge a plan on how to fight state capture.
The one-day conference is taking place at the Rhema Bible Church in Randburg.
Koza sat on a panel, along with Prasa’s Popo Molefe, who has also received threats for doing his job.
Khoza said she knew that many were wondering what she, as an ANC Member of Parliament, was doing at this gathering.
Not holding anything back, a feisty Khoza said: "I have been associated with the African National Congress since I was 12 years old.
I was taught to respect leadership directives. I was also socialised to view anything that comes from one's opponents with suspicion."
'Dishonourable and disgraceful leader'
Khoza said, during the liberation struggle, the only system that made sense to the oppressed, exploited and disenfranchised, was communism.
Therefore, she said, it was not surprising that democratic centralism had been adopted.
"However, the dilemma I have is this: What if such directives are morally bankrupt, directionless; and reflect arrogance and dishonesty of that very democratically elected leadership?
"What if such directives betray the organisational mission of the people’s Parliament?
She said, when she committed herself to the ANC, she knew that it was not for material gains.
"I have been upholding this commitment, can this be the same with my leadership collective, especially my president…
"I am here because South Africans are speaking and I have to listen attentively, so that my ANC can be an effective instrument of liberation.
"Can the ANC be an effective instrument of non-racialism when it is led by a president who has lost legitimacy, credibility, integrity and honourableness? I am here to defend the ANC’s mission and not a dishonourable and disgraceful leader."
'A man who harvests women'
She said she had attended because, "as an African feminist, grounded in Ubuntu philosophy, I find the patriarchal system oppressive. I also find being led by a man who harvests women, increasingly intolerable".
She said she had been living with the pain for a long time.
"He [Zuma] promised to stay for one term, but he never did. To know that it is not my pain, but the pain of all South Africans, that is what led me to stand up and speak out.
"This is a president, who appears to promote tribalism... not only are we divided along racial lines because our president, when his citizens march pleading with him to step down - in order to give South Africa breathing space so that we may implement the National Development Plan, root out corruption and state capture that the president has institutionalised - he calls them racists and agents of white monopoly capital.
"This is a president, when black intellectuals place their views, he does not agree with them. He sarcastically labels them clever blacks. I am black. I am clever. I am smart. I am educated and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that," she said to loud cheers.
Khoza said Zuma was a president who made black people feel "awkward" for being black and smart.
"This is a president who seems to yearn to be a king, hence his Nkandla royal state."
