/ 28 October 2016

Pravin dock date kicks off Save SA campaign

'... reading support of Gordhan as opposition to the government of President Jacob Zuma would be stupid
'... reading support of Gordhan as opposition to the government of President Jacob Zuma would be stupid

When Finance Minister Pravin Gord­han enters the dock as an accused on Wednesday, he will have an impressive array of supporters in the court, outside the building, elsewhere in the city and — if the organisers of just one group get their way — throughout the country.

Various groups intend to then transform that support into pressure on the government — and the president in particular — from business, civil society, political parties, ANC alliance partners and within the ANC itself.

The People’s Assembly Against State Capture of the Save SA movement has called on employers to allow workers to gather immediately outside their workplaces at 9am on November  2 to rally around the South African flag.

In Pretoria, where Gordhan is due to appear on charges including fraud, Save SA and its wide range of civil society endorsers are hoping for a “representative sample of South Africa”. That group will work with groups from the Democratic Alliance, the Economic Freedom Fighters and other opposition parties, and at least one group in the ruling alliance.

In the court itself will be some powerful individuals.

“I will go to court,” ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Thursday. “A court attendance for a comrade who is arrested is the same as attending a funeral.”

But reading support of Gordhan as opposition to the government of President Jacob Zuma would be stupid, Mantashe said.

Others, such as ANC head of economic transformation Enoch Godongwana, also intend to take part in Gordhan supporting activities. “The majority of South Africans who will be joining the march believe that the charges [against Gordhan] are spurious and intended to force the minister to resign. That should not be allowed to happen.”

Likely to be conspicuous by their absence will be Gordhan’s colleagues in Cabinet — and Zuma himself. They will be locked in a scheduled Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, probably in Cape Town, Zuma’s office confirmed.

But the dust will not settle before they return to the capital. For Save SA, November 2 is merely the kick-off for a campaign, details of which it will release on the day.

Before the week is out, Save SA will be joined by the For the Sake of our Future (FSF) — a new group promoted this week by ANC stalwarts such as Frank Chikane and Cheryl Carolus.

The FSF urged ANC members to turn out to show support for Gordhan. “No stalwart who believes in the historical values of the ANC can abstain from this issue,” the group said in a statement.

For the FSF, too, November 2 is merely a starting point. It planned to start a “dialogue with the [top] six officials of the ANC”, the group said.

The “overwhelming majority” of ANC members would support any initiative that strengthens the ANC and institutions of state, the group said, “to ensure the necessary corrections take place before it is too late”.

A Save SA steering committee member said the group was running against the clock in its preparations, but was not planning to bus people to Tshwane. But other parties and groups, including two close to the ANC, were discussing how to arrange a large group of supporters.

With ANC support from individuals at least, and no party disclaimer of the event, the only November 2 dissident political group by Thursday was the fringe Black First Land First.

“Every black person in the country who’s going to march on November  2 to defend Pravin, they must know they’ll not be defending Pravin, they are defending white capital,” the group’s convener, Andile Mngxitama, told a business breakfast named for the Gupta-owned New Age newspaper and sponsored by the Gupta-owned JIC Mining.

Security preparations for the various Pretoria events on Wednesday were being handled with what one participant in meetings, who is not authorised to speak to the media, said was enormous care and attention to detail.

“You have a city [Tshwane] that is controlled by the DA, and they are involved in every step of the planning process here; they know everything, they have all the documents from the cops.”

If crowd control were botched, or legitimate marches disrupted, or protesters mistreated in front of the local and international media contingent expected, the planner said, “everyone knows they will be thrown under the bus by the government”.