Cape Town - President Jacob Zuma has hit back at opposition leaders who tried to pin the blame for the flagging economy on him, turning the tables by suggesting their negative views were hurting the country.
Responding to the debate on his Presidency budget speech on Wednesday, Zuma said it had taken place at “a critical time”.
“There is still no end in sight to the global financial crisis and economic growth still seems a bit elusive. We are therefore going through a period that requires unity and common purpose,” he said.
On Wednesday, DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko and Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota blamed the country’s crisis of confidence on Zuma’s weak leadership.
Mazibuko said a run on the rand shortly after a speech Zuma gave in a bid to reassure the markets showed they had “reached the same conclusion that the rest of South Africa reached some time ago: they have no confidence in the president of the Republic”.
Zuma said on Thursday she had “distorted the reasons for the depreciation of the rand, probably as part of the agenda to continuously portray the country as failing”.
It was “disturbing” that the woes of the mining sector that had rattled the markets were seen as “an opportunity for mudslinging”.
He said the markets had been “very volatile” on the day of his speech, in response to suggestions the US was set to curb its quantitative easing programme that had flooded the markets with easy money, much of it flowing to emerging markets like South Africa.
The rand’s weakness was “a natural consequence of lower commodity prices and a surging dollar” that followed the news.
Domestic factors like labour instability and weaker than anticipated growth had also contributed.
“The bottom line is that we should exercise caution when dealing with such matters and avoid uninformed or loose talk that may exacerbate the situation,” Zuma said.
The “selective” reference to a call by Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus for strong leadership was another example of how “some of the opposition parties function as opposition for opposition’s sake, and fail dismally to recognise the need to put the country first”.
Turning to attempts by the opposition to compare him unfavourably with Nelson Mandela, he said the DA, in particular, portrayed Mandela as though he had been “born in 1994”, ignoring his life as a revolutionary and commander of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Later, becoming visibly irritated by heckling from the opposition, he said some MPs were reducing Parliament in the eyes of voters.
“They can’t understand. No respect, nothing. What are we teaching the citizens that voted for us? We need, all of us, to accept reality. We are not helping the people out there, nor the country. Even if we differ, let us differ with respect.”
He suggested the opposition should engage on policy rather than launching personal attacks. “Because, as the ANC, I would want after a debate to sit back and think and consider what people have said. Not just remember noise and anger.
“You can pile insults, (be) personal, we are not going to respond.”
Mazibuko said on Thursday Zuma’s attempts to defend his press conference on the economy revealed his lack of leadership.
“This press conference was an opportunity for the president to return confidence to the markets and send a message that he had a plan to restore growth,” she said. If he had announced “the major reforms that the economy needed, the markets would have responded positively”.
Political Bureau