By Bheki Mbanjwa
Zet Luzipo, Cosatu's provincial secretary in KwaZulu-Natal, on Wednesday called on ANC President Jacob Zuma to make a "smart" choice when appointing a person to take over as the country's national director of public prosecutions.
This is if Zuma becomes the next president of the country.
"Do not appoint someone who will prosecute you, because if you do so it cannot be made our responsibility," Luzipo said to deafening applause at a rally at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Pietermaritzburg campus on Wednesday.
Luzipo, a supporter of Zuma and one of the people at the forefront in the fight to have charges against him dropped, implied that Zuma should make sure that the next prosecutions boss was someone sympathetic to him and one who would withdraw the corruption charges he is facing.
"Do this so that when we go to court on August 25, we will go there to celebrate," he said.
The position of national director of public prosecutions was left vacant after Vusi Pikoli was sacked by President Kgalema Motlanthe after the Ginwala Commission of inquiry into his fitness to hold office. Pikoli and his predecessor, Bulelani Ngcuka, are seen by many Zuma supporters as the source of all the ANC president's legal troubles.
Meanwhile the secretary general of the Young Communist League (YCL), Buti Manamela, said the Scorpions would fail in their bid "to see Zuma behind bars".
"They have failed in the past eight years and will never succeed during his term in office as president of the country. He doesn't belong behind bars and you will never see him in orange overalls" he said, adding that Zuma remained innocent as he had not been found guilty in a court of law.
"You can find him guilty in your bedrooms, your boardrooms and in the media, but we will stand by him because he has not been found guilty in a court of law."
Manamela said all in the ANC were in agreement that Zuma should lead the country after the elections and that President Motlanthe should become the deputy president of the country.