Johannesburg - The ANC on Wednesday dismissed Democratic Alliance parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko's warning to President Jacob Zuma as an empty, rhetorical threat.
“We are aware that, with the election looming, some political leaders will blow plenty of hot air at every direction in order to grab as many headlines as possible,” ANC Chief Whip Stone Sizani said in a statement.
“There are opposition parties in Parliament who have offered the electorate no alternative or creative ideas since 2009, except to repeatedly call for the president of the country to resign.”
On Tuesday, Mazibuko vowed to table a motion to impeach Zuma if the Public Protector's report on his private homestead in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, implicated him in wrongdoing.
Speaking in the National Assembly during debate on Zuma's State of the Nation address on Tuesday, she told MPs she wanted to deliver a very clear message on the Nkandla “scandal”, which involved over R206 million of public money.
“I want to use this opportunity to send a very clear message to our honourable members, that should the honourable president be involved in any wrongdoing in the Public Protector's report on the Nkandla scandal, I will not hesitate to table a motion to impeach him in this House,” she said.
Sizani on Wednesday claimed Mazibuko's comments were designed to pressure the Public Protector to find Zuma guilty.
“While certain opposition parties have clearly demonstrated that they exist for no other reason except to engage in a negative and anti-Zuma campaign, as the ANC we will continue to celebrate with the people our achievements and our practical plan to move South African forward beyond the 2014 election,” he said. - Sapa