- Former president Jacob Zuma says he will fight back if the law is being used to “target” him.
- He again threatened to spill the beans about the “rot” within the ANC.
- Zuma said the party’s “wars” should be fought within and not in the courts.
Former president Jacob Zuma has once more used the platform created by his court case to express his resentment towards the country’s judiciary system.
This was as his day in court was once more been postponed, this time to 26 May.
On Monday, while outside the Pietermaritzburg High Court addressing hundreds of ANC supporters who came to support him ahead of his court case, the corruption-accused Zuma questioned the “prolonging” of his court case by two years and the charges that “kept on changing”.
Zuma faces 16 charges relating to 783 payments he allegedly received in connection with South Africa’s controversial arms deal case.
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Addressing his supporters in isiZulu, Zuma said: “I don’t want to say a lot because we will say a lot in court about how this case has no justice.
“There are people who were whispering with the investigators, saying I must get arrested, you’ll hear it when we speak. There were also people in charge of law enforcement who were saying the same thing. There were also people who used every type of swear word against me, you will hear it when we speak, but they are also the same people heading up the case.”
Zuma added that there were proper structures and procedures that could be followed within the ANC to vent issues against those trying to come after him.
“I don’t want us to fight it here. I don’t want to be here expecting to be supported and leave disappointed, I beg you. If there is a comrade I want to deal with, I must deal with them at the place, not here.”
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“We are here to support me win this case. I don’t want to hear [something] and be hurt, and it shouldn’t hurt because we are supposed to be here in one spirit. When the time comes to deal with each other we must,” Zuma said.
The former President claimed there was a political witch-hunt to oust him from office by his fellow comrades. However he said where the law was out of line, he would aim to strengthen it and that there would be “consequences” for those using the law as a political tool to target him.
He said:
If I see that they are breaking the law using the fact that they are in charge, I will resist, if they say I must enter here, I won’t, and once I have refused I have refused. I want them to be just and carry the law in a lawful way. I am one of the people who fought for democracy. You can’t try and confuse me today and say something is not democratic. I am expecting the law to work like the law.
While the ANC remains deeply challenged by the growing factions within the organisation, among those who have been dubbed as the “Radical Economic Transformation” forces, Zuma urged ANC supporters to rally behind him without being divided within the organisation.
His remarks came a few minutes after the crowed booed KwaZulu-Natal ANC Secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli and Premier and ANC provincial Chairperson Sihle Zikalala, who tried to address them.
“I wish that whenever we come here to support Zuma, we support Zuma and not do other things. I beg you because that doesn’t give our organisation dignity. We will become a joke if we come here and say we are here to support Zuma but are divided.
“That war of yours you want to fight has its places,” Zuma said, with reference to the fact that he wanted this to be discussed within the ANC.
Zuma again threatened to “expose” the “rot” within the ANC, adding that if he were to speak about certain party members in the ANC it would be a danger to the organisation.
“There are people I know bad things about, but the world would end (before I say anything), so I keep quiet because I don’t want to let down the ANC. Someone once asked me why I say I am going to speak but never do, and I said, ‘you don’t know the responsibility I have for the ANC’,” he said.
