Dear Mr President,

Let me first appreciate and acknowledge the sacrifice you made in fighting for the liberation of the soul of both black and white people in South Africa. I say black and white people for the simple fact that, for the oppressor to oppress, there must have being something fundamentally wrong with the oppressor and further more, I don't think the oppressor community was completely content with the oppression of the black community.

This could be validated by many white people who contributed in the struggle against apartheid. Apartheid in my view was damaging to the soul of both a black and a white South African. I can clearly agree that, apartheid benefited white people economically and marginalized black people economically.

It is my view that the architects of apartheid felt extremely vulnerable and that could have been the reason why they had to marginalize black people. They did not institute apartheid because they thought they were a better race, they instituted apartheid because they thought black people could be a better race.

White people who fought for apartheid were already liberated from the shackles of self doubt.

Today as I write this letter to you I have a lot of respect for someone like ex-pres FW De Klerk. He did not have to allow a peaceful transition from the apartheid regime to the rainbow nation. He did not have to release Mandela from prison. He could have held on to power until there was bloodshed in the country. There is something chronically wrong about holding onto power for the sake of holding onto power; such as is the case in Zimbabwe .

This letter is mainly a call for you to do things differently. I personally appreciate your efforts be a good leader. I must admit you are doing your best and that has to be appreciated.

I want to warn you that I'm one of those people who never wanted you to be president of the republic. However, once you became president, I managed to shut my mouth and basically wait and see what would happen.

I have come to a conclusion that you have vindicated some of us who live less than perfect lives. Regardless of what the people have being saying I have a strong belief that your presidency is heavily out of kilter with the basic fundamentals of a balanced society.

The good news is that South Africans generally love you, especially for vindicating them and practically demonstrating that they don't have to be perfect. They have no better values to look up to. They don't have any stiff standards to measure themselves against. You have not given them either.

I hate to mention this, but one of the basic fundamentals of our society is to have safe sex and use condoms in doing so. I have mentioned that I hate to bring this up, because I think this issue has been exhausted. And you have no reason to feel bad about it. However, this is going to haunt South Africa for a very long time. Its' psychological effect on South Africans will be forever damaging. With this item you have not demonstrated leadership at all.

It beats me as to how are you going to be able to inspire your fellow country men to use protection while you couldn't do it.

Every time I hear you talk about uprooting corruption I shiver, not that you are corrupt, but that you allowed technicalities to prevent you from answering the charges against you in court. How then do you expect civil servants to heed your call of a corruption free society? Are you not getting embarrassed yourself every time you say that you cannot tolerate corruption?

I can assure you that, the majority of South Africans love you, and they love you for the wrong reasons.

People like Archbishop Desmond Tutu have given up on their criticism of you, not that they respect you as a person, but because they realized that people like you. It is not always good to be liked as a leader. In most cases, leaders who are liked by the people are not good leaders. This is because they let people off the hook by allowing people the freedom to exercise their bad habits without demanding the best from them.

I respect you as a person, but as a leader of the country I really think you are but a disaster.

I'm concerned that as both the president of the country and of the ruling party you have allowed your party to opportunistically make every event in South Africa a racial issue. You have allowed your own party to take advantage of a troubled athlete and create publicity and drum up support for your own party. That in my view is short sighted and does not inspire confidence.

The fact that, you could easily promise people 500 000 jobs during a recession is a clear sign of desperation by yourself and the party you lead to remain in power. Even if it means deceiving ordinary South Africans to stay in power that Mr. President will do it.

Some time before Schabir Shaik was released from the prison hospital you said very clearly that just because Schabir was your friend it did not mean that you would not allow him to be released just because of that. A few months later Shabir was released.

Although Dikgang Moseneke has got impeccable credentials for the bench he was overlooked by yourself because he said something about your organization that you interpreted in your own way and unfortunately you did not like your interpretation of what he said and that made you angry.

Mr. President, some of your appointments scare me; they look like someone who's getting ready for a battle, especially your appointments in NIA and SASS. Who are you planning to deal with? Or what do you want to protect?

There are many other things that I could mention here, however, I will leave it at the points above.

I want to warn Mr. President and say that Mr. President's most important role is to inspire all South African to be the best citizens they can be. Mr. President needs to set the highest of the higher standards by both words and deeds.

It is in my view that the role of the president of the republic is to ensure that all South Africans feel that South Africa is their home. No South African regardless of their past sins must feel guilty of being South Africans. The kids of the architects of apartheid must feel that South Africa is their land.

The messages coming from some members of your party are tearing South Africa apart. Each and every issue for them is a racial issue. They make a white person feel like he needs to defend himself.

A divided South Africa will never be good for you or for ANC.

I say this knowing very well that a racially divided South Africa will prolong the stay of ANC in power. But do we really need to be in Power even if it means reversing all the gains we have accumulated since 1994?

I feel very strongly that all of your promises will not be fulfilled or will not bear fruit. You have created a monster of a presidency and cabinet, just to massage the egos of some of your loyalists. Already they are fighting over a duplication of responsibilities.

You seem to be at the mercy of your chief lobbyists and that is the ANCYL, COSATU and SACP.

I want to advice Mr. President to give up the presidency of the Republic Of South Africa and allow the Republic to regain its integrity and for our people to given back their right to morality. For the president of the youth league of your party to say that morality is relative and differs from person to person is really disgusting.

By giving up the Presidency of the republic you will remain a legend that became a president against all odds and later sacrificed himself for the sake of his own people.

It is wrong to hold on to power at the expense of your own people. The leader must know what's best for his people. Most of the time as people, we don't really know what's best for ourselves.

If ex-pres FW De Klerk could do it you can too. Follow his example. Admit that, you are leading a bad administration. Save our judiciary, save our constitution, save the rule of law.

Set the highest standard for our people to live up to. The next time you speak against corruption, announce that you are ready for your case to be re-opened and challenge the NPA to re-open it.

You as well are an African and you have the ability to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the people.

Thank you, Mr President

Regards,

Sefu Sekgala

Concerned young South African

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