SACP needs President Zuma as its father christmas, plain & simple

18 December 2015

Congress of the People understands all too well how much of a Father Christmas President Zuma has been to the South African Communist Party. President Zuma raided the national treasury to create 35 ministerial posts and 37 openings for deputy ministers. Their salaries, sedans and mansions will put even the imperialists to shame. The South African government under President Zuma is unique in the world in its extravagance and cost to the nation.

Without President Zuma at the helm, the SACP will have the taps shut off. No wonder the SACP is alarmed and desperately pleading with its alliance partners to support Zuma in the face of mounting the #ZumaMustFall campaign. All the hangers on have too much to lose if Zuma goes. So will highly connected business families.

There are no dangerous imperialists anywhere threatening to bring down President Zuma. President Zuma is inflicting serious self-injury to himself without any external malign forces. President Zuma shot himself in both feet on 10 December, 2015 when he inexplicably and irrationally fired the principled Nhlanhla Nnene as Minister of Finance.   

The democratic people of South Africa couldn’t sleep that night as the rand plummeted frighteningly and people understood the economic catastrophe that Zuma and the alliance partners had engineered. People were shocked and frightened. They saw in President Zuma a man who was a real danger to South Africa.

The government also experienced a shock. Suddenly the cost for government to borrow money has shot up. Our bonds have not yet been classified as junk but government’s borrowing costs have gone up in anticipation of such a downgrade. If society had not revolted, South Africa would have been bankrupt today. We came that close to falling over the fiscal cliff.

Democratic South Africans have woken up. Today, unlike the SACP, South Africans fear the enemy within. President Zuma is no friend of the people and no protector of its economy. He said himself that he puts the ANC first and makes jokes when he should be leading. Furthermore, President Zuma had not only depleted the national treasury which was quite full when President Mbeki was recalled, he has also stolen the future of South Africa’s young people. He leaves them a mountain of debt to carry. To add salt into raw wounds, he and the ruling party will now seek to hike taxes that South Africans will not be able to bear. The imperialist bogeyman frightens the SACP. President Zuma is a living nightmare for South Africans. What will he do next to rattle business confidence and make the nation poorer? The fear of Zuma has created a national angst.

Had South Africans not reacted in the way they did, Blade Nzimande would have been axed by now. He was in the firing line.

As COPE sees it, the only “offensive” against the people of South Africa is coming from the ruling party. President Zuma has directly caused the national debt to climb above R2-trillion. The impact of this is what the SACP should be screaming about. Soon, very soon, government will not have money to pay the salaries of teachers, doctors, police officers, nurses and government employees. President Zuma has brought the country to the very edge of the fiscal cliff. Bankruptcy faces South Africa and the people of the country are truly and seriously alarmed. Only the SACP and the alliance partners have no fear of falling over the fiscal cliff.

While they live in dreamland, socialist patriots in our country are now mobilising in the #Zuma Must Fall campaign to save the situation as urgently as they can. They want to save South Africa for the masses against the political elite, led by President Zuma, who are living large. President Zuma’s attempt to capture the state and seize the treasury was a step too far. SACP has hopelessly and patently failed the socialist cause. It speaks left but lives the Gucci dream. The nation has seen the SACP members for the arch hypocrites they are. They splurge on themselves and offer the poor mere rhetoric to appease the pangs of hunger they feel.  

COPE is very proud to have marched on 16th December in support of the “NO RECONCILIATION WITH CORRUPTION” campaign. The participants are acutely aware of the need to reconcile with one another in the interest of racial harmony and creating a more equal society. We are adamant, however, that we will never reconcile with corruption, incompetence and economic meltdown. As we examine President Zuma’s dismal track record and that of the ANC he leads, it is clear that the #ANCMustFall campaign must gather momentum. They have lied to most of the people most of the time, but no more.  

COPE calls on South Africans to use the power of their votes in the coming LGE to take municipalities back into their control for their own good. The ruling party must pay a severe price for impoverishing South Africans and failing to deliver basic services at an affordable price to them. South Africa belongs to the people, all the people and certainly not to President Zuma to do with it what he likes. The time for judgment is drawing nigh.  

President Zuma's time as Father Christmas for the SACP is also coming to an end.

Issued by Dennis Bloem, Spokesperson, COPE, 18 December 2015