PRESIDENT ZUMA IS OPENLY DISRESPECTING THE CONSTITUTION

Our country is in serious trouble under a President who openly devalues the Constitution and boldly tells his party and the country that for him the ANC comes before the country.

President Zuma is very empty headed. Our first president, Nelson Mandela, always emphasized that the country came first. He openly demonstrated his stance for the whole world top see. In 1994 he eagerly led a government of national unity, not an ANC Government, against the resistance of his political party. He consistently put the country first. His successor, President Thabo Mbeki went even further by embracing the entire continent. He put the country and the whole of Africa first, not the ANC.

It is very clear that President Zuma has never taken his oath of office seriously.  Even though he swore to uphold the constitution and defend the values and principles of the constitution, he has repeatedly acted in the opposite manner.

President Zuma is an embarrassment to our country and a serious impediment to economic growth. By his putting the ANC before the country, he has weakened our national institutions, hugely expanded the cabinet and the bureaucracy, handed out scores of golden handshakes to incompetent loyalists, unleased social discontent, and allowed corruption to flourish. When he declared boldly that he always puts the ANC before the country, his supporters in the ANC will agree with him because they know very well that they have shut off reserved for themselves the fruits of freedom.

South Africa must understand why former President Mbeki was compelled to point out that the country was in a state of drift and why former President Motlanthe recently criticised the state of affairs under President Zuma so openly. President Zuma is a liability, plain and simple. He occupies high office because of the sycophants who surround him.

Those of us who left the ANC after Polokwane expressed the very sentiments that that many senior leaders in the ANC are entertaining today. COPE, nonetheless, is encouraged that all those who gave President Zuma a chance to prove that he could lead the country are now giving up on him

COPE urges President Zuma to retire to his palatial homestead at Nkandla that was gifted to him by the ANC at taxpayers' expense. He has gone too far this time.

Issued by Dennis Bloem, COPE Spokesperson, 9 November 2015