COPE was not going to sit & listen to a discredited president

11 February 2016

COPE could not in good conscience sit and listen to a discredited president. That is why our members refused to dignify the state of the nation address. How could we respect a President who has no respect whatsoever for the House? We could not listen to him because he had misled the honourable House. We cannot give him respect that he does not deserve. We had expected that he would use the opportunity to announce his resignation.

This is the second State of the Nation that has descended into utter chaos. This has happened because the President continued to break his oath of office and the ANC caucus continued to condone his action unflinchingly. The President and the ANC pushed the envelope too far. Both are now reaping what they have sown.

COPE refused to have anything to do with the ad hoc committee set up to receive the farcical report of the police minister because it was second guessing the Public Protector. No party must be inveigled into supporting that which is manifestly illegal. It must be rejected out of hand.

President Zuma has violated the constitution repeatedly and manipulated the justice system to protect himself against prosecution. The ANC has allowed him to do so to the total detriment of the nation.

The word of the ANC of today is discredited. More and more people have come to realise that President Zuma is not the protector and defender of the constitution but its destroyer. Unlike President Mandela who signed the constitution and staunchly defended it in word and deed, President Zuma is no champion of the constitution.

For two years he defied the Public Protector and then backed down when the matter went to the Constitutional Court. How can he continue to remain in office? How can we sit there and listen to a president who does not believe in the supremacy of the constitution? How can we give him legitimacy when he has none?

On principle, South Africans should stop affording him a halo. He is damaging South Africa. He speaks with a forked tongue.

Had the ANC done the moral thing and recalled him, the State of the Nation address would have proceeded with dignity and honour. All of us would have listened to the new President because he would have not have been tainted as President Zuma is.

COPE does not want it said that it went with the flow against its better judgment or that its commitment to the constitution was weak window dressing. COPE made it very clear that the constitution is the supreme law of the nation. We respect the constitution implicitly and will never condone any behaviour that is inconsistent with the constitution. We will not allow that within COPE or within government.

The President offended against the constitution to such an extent that one must ask whether anyone in the ANC caucus has any grain of decency left to go on applauding and hero worshipping someone who is fallen as President Zuma. Is feeding at the trough the only raison d’état for ANC caucus members continuing to keep President Zuma in office? Are they willing to sell their souls to perpetrate lie after lie knowingly and unashamedly?

COPE believes that it cannot be proper to sit in parliament and to listen respectfully to a President who openly disdains the constitution. We made our point and showed our extreme disenchantment with the President’s continuous erosion of the constitution. He has broken his trust to such an extent that it was imperative for us to show our revulsion. That is why we chose not to sit differentially and listen to someone who is unworthy of respect.

Issued by Mosiuoa Lekota, COPE President, 11 February 2016