Opposition Leader Challenges South Africa Ruling Party President to a Public Debate
June 21, 2008
The leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance Helen Zille has challenged African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma to a public debate on 10 key issues, including his stance on the supremacy of the constitution, the arms deal, HIV and Aids and the Scorpions (prosecuting agency).
On Friday ANC spokesperson Jessie Duarte confirmed that the party had received the correspondence and would respond.
“The ANC will treat Mrs Zille’s correspondence as it would any other correspondence,” Duarte said. In the document, Zille posed 10 questions to Zuma, who was elected ANC president six months ago, requesting clarification on certain issues and calling on him to debate the issues in a public forum.
Addressing the media in Cape Town on Friday morning, Zille said the questions, many of which focused on Zuma’s public uttering, were posed because “South Africans have the right to know who Jacob Zuma is, what he stands for and what South Africa can expect under his presidency”.
The questions were the Democratic Alliance Alliance’s first salvo directed at the ANC president, as it intends launching a series of documents that set out “the implications of a Zuma presidency for South Africa.” She also raised questions related to the Zuma corruption case and his having said that politicians had to be “upright and transparent insofar as the use of public funds is concerned”.
Among some of the questions Zille specifically asked Zuma are whether he would retract his statement that the ANC was more important than the constitution; stop the policy of deploying ANC “cadres” to key positions in the institutions of state, including those designed to limit and balance the power of the governing party; acknowledge that the South African government’s approach in Zimbabwe has failed
She also asked if Zuma would admit that the government had interfered with independent investigations into the arms deal and ask the Chief Justice to appoint an independent judicial commission of enquiry to fully investigate all corruption allegations relating to the deal and; whether he would distance himself from the current ANC government’s Aids denial and admit the damage it has caused to the fight against the pandemic.
Zille also asked Zuma to offer South Africans the assurance that, if elected to the office of president, he will uphold the dignity of that office and step down from that office should he be convicted of a criminal charge.
Source African Press Agency
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