Johannesburg - Jacob Zuma came under fire this week for “fuelling racial hatred” - and those taking aim at him are the family members of former ANC stalwarts.
In the past weeks, Zuma made several public comments, under the banner of the ANC, in which he questioned the decisions by certain black people to vote for the DA, despite the fact that the party is led by Mmusi Maimane, who was born and bred in Dobsonville, Soweto.
Zuma called the DA “a party of white people” that only serves the interest of the rich.
The comments infuriated Ghaleb Cachalia, the DA’s Ekurhuleni mayoral candidate.
“Even the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) won’t make comments or do things like that. Why is Jacob Zuma playing the dangerous race card?” he asked.
Cachalia is the son of ANC stalwarts Yusuf and Aminah Cachalia.
Also notable among those unhappy with Zuma’s comments were, Lindela Tshwete - the first-born son of Steve Tshwete, the former minister of sport in Nelson Mandela’s cabinet and Madoda Mbeki - a close relative of former South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki.
Tshwete is a proportional list candidate-elect for the DA in the City of Cape Town and Madoda Mbeki is a ward candidate-elect for the DA at Mnquma Local Municipality in Butterworth in the Eastern Cape.
All three were once ANC members who have abandoned the party for the DA. The three jointly addressed the media in Rosebank on Friday say they wanted to unanimously express their disgust at Zuma’s electioneering strategy. They labelled Zuma’s comment as “spitting in Nelson Mandela’s face”.
“This dangerous campaigning must be seen for what it is - desperation to cling to power at all costs, because the ANC doesn’t have a plan to create jobs, stop corruption and deliver better services.
“The sad truth is that the ANC is no longer the party of Nelson Mandela, and no longer the party our parents and families brought us up in,” Tshwete said.
Tshwete added: “To divide our nation along racial lines is to take us back to the darkest and most deplorable parts of our history. United we are strong, but divided by Jacob Zuma, we are at risk of fracturing our nation. This shows that the ANC cannot be trusted to take South Africa forward.”
All three former ANC members said they left the party because of the scandal over Zuma’s R247 million security upgrades at his Nkandla home.
Cachalia was equally scathing saying “this country is plagued by issues of race. To use the racial epithet to divide the people (and) against the values of the ANC.”
Saturday Star