General Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement says Deputy President Jacob Zuma should ”vacate” his position and thereafter he should be prosecuted.
At the party’s national council in Pretoria at the weekend, the party passed a resolution noting the trial of Zuma’s business adviser Schabir Shaik, and called on President Thabo Mbeki ”on the overwhelming balance of probabilities to ask Mr Zuma to vacate his office because the image of that office and of the country is on the line”.
During the trial, much evidence of payments by Shaik’s company to Zuma has been noted.
The UDM also urged the National Prosecuting Authority to then charge and prosecute Zuma, ”so that he has the opportunity to disprove the allegations against him before a court of law”.
The party also called on UDM members who are also members of unions affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) to question the links between Cosatu and the Shaik group of companies.
Noting the cloud hanging over the deputy president — ”and statements from the African National Congress alliance partners that he will remain their presidential candidate irrespective of the outcome of the current Shaik trial” — the UDM resolved that an active campaign for electoral reform must be launched to introduce greater accountability and give voters a greater say in who governs them.
Such electoral reform should result in separate presidential elections — separate to parliamentary elections — so that the country should choose the person who led the country.
The UDM also resolved that the electoral system should not allow for floor-crossing except under a constituency-based system — which at present applies to about half of public representatives at local government level — and even then it should trigger by-elections. — I-Net Bridge