Jonas to lead anti-Zuma march today

By MALIBONGWE DAYIMANI, NATASHA MARRIAN and MOIPONE MALEFANE

Former national finance deputy minister and ANC rebel Mcebisi Jonas will lead a march today in Cape Town to parliament supporting a motion of no confidence against President Jacob Zuma.

Jonas said the march, organised by 25 civil organisations and various religious groups, is a build-up to tomorrow’s big day in parliament where members will vote on a motion of no confidence in Zuma.

Some of the groups that organised the march, include Save SA, Sonke Gender Justice and Right to Know.

Further marches will take place tomorrow to coincide with the vote.

In a 40-second video message uploaded on social media platforms, Jonas calls for South Africans to join the cause and march against Zuma.

“This is a very significant milestone for the country – probably the beginning of what could be a national movement that begins to write a new agenda for the country. Please support it.”

The #UnitedBehind coalition march will leave from Keizersgracht at 3pm, where Jonas will deliver his main address.

Jonas joins a growing list of ANC heavyweights getting backlash from certain camps within the party for their anti-Zuma campaigns.

ANC firebrand MP Makhosi Khoza is facing death threats for calling on Zuma to step down while some of the party’s bosses in KwaZulu-Natal have called for her to be disciplined.

Asked whether he is worried about being charged by the party, a chuckling Jonas said: “We can’t allow ourselves to be intimidated, this is a call by South Africans and I am part of it.”

Opposition parties have put the ANC “on trial”, pitting the governing party and its defence of Zuma against South Africans who have for months been calling on him to step down.

Apart from the parliamentary or legal processes set to unfold during the motion of no confidence tomorrow, opposition parties have placed the ANC in an untenable situation politically.

A victory for the ANC and Zuma in the motion will be irrelevant should the support for his removal be as widespread as opposition parties, civil society and even ANC veterans and alliance partners claim it is.

The test for the support for Zuma’s removal will be in protest marches such as #UnitedBehind.

South Africans took to the streets in their numbers in April after Zuma’s cabinet reshuffle.

And while Zuma may remain in office after tomorrow’s motion, the damage to the ANC as it limps towards its national conference in December and the 2019 national election, will be difficult to reverse.

This is a record eighth time opposition parties have sought to remove the president with a motion of no confidence.

National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete is expected to announce today whether the voting will happen under a secret ballot, with all 12 opposition parties and some ANC members in support of the axing of Zuma.

EFF chairman Dali Mpofu yesterday said should Mbete announce that the ballot in the motion not be held in secret, the party would head to court to test the “rationality” of her decision.

DA federal chairman James Selfe said the DA would take the speaker’s reasons into account when taking a decision on how to proceed once she announces whether the vote would be in secret or not.

He said Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng had provided an outline for rationality in the Constitutional Court judgment on a secret ballot.

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa, who brought the initial application on the secret ballot to the Constitutional Court, said his party would assess her reasons for an open or secret ballot and consult with opposition parties on the best way forward.

“It is the ANC on trial in this setup. If Cyril Ramaphosa, Blade Nzimande and Pravin Gordhan vote for Zuma, who will trust them towards 2019?”

The ANC’s national executive committee has instructed its MPs to toe the party line and barred them from throwing their support behind a motion of no confidence.

Holomisa added he would be surprised if Mbete did not allow a secret ballot because of the threats of disciplinary action by the ANC against their MPs who voted against Zuma.

According to senior sources in parliament who wished to remain anonymous, the “unintended consequences” of the motion would come back to bite the ANC.

The motion was described as an “unwinnable situation” for the ruling party.

Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgobo yesterday in a video widely circulated by civil society, encouraged people to “go out in their numbers” today to demonstrate that MPs should “vote with their conscience”.

The SA Council of Churches also called on “all people of faith” to take part in the protests against Zuma as his government “has lost moral legitimacy”.

But it is not just opposition parties and civil society who are pushing for the motion against Zuma to succeed – both of the ANC’s alliance partners, Cosatu and the SA Communist Party, are taking part in the protest march to give expression to its decision to call on Zuma to step down.

SACP spokesman Alex Mashilo said the party’s deputy secretary-general Solly Mapaila would be participating in the #UnitedBehind march.

The SACP has some 50 or more MPs in parliament and has already taken a party decision to call on Zuma to step down. However, the SACP has not issued an instruction to its MPs on how to vote in tomorrow’s motion.

Cosatu urged its 200000 members on Friday to join the march.

ANC veterans and stalwarts – 101 of whom have been agitating for change in the governing party – wrote an open letter to ANC MPs yesterday, urging them to vote with their conscience to remove Zuma.

These ANC veterans were joined by activists from the UDF.

Yesterday, a statement from veterans of the UDF in the Western Cape called on “comrades who are now ANC MPs in the National Assembly”, to vote in support of the motion of no confidence.