The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) has reiterated that it wants Jacob Zuma to be the next president of South Africa.
”We… reiterate our unwavering support for the ANC deputy president, comrade Jacob Zuma, as the next president of the ANC, and ultimately that of the country,” ANCYL president, Fikile Mbalula, said in Johannesburg on Thursday.
The league was briefing reporters following the High Court trial during which Zuma was acquitted on a rape charge.
The 31-year-old HIV-positive accuser was often referred to as ”Lucifer” by ANCYL leaders during the briefing.
Mbalula said the league believed the complainant was bribed to lay the charge against Zuma. However, he did not know who had paid this bribe and how much it was.
”The ANCYL will further probe and satisfy itself about rumours that she was paid and/or bribed. In this context, we must probe whether there was no evil hand led by people such as Malume [Uncle] Ronnie [Kasrils] and Malume Ngcuka,” Mbalula said.
Intelligence Minister, Ronnie Kasrils, was contacted by the woman after she and Zuma had sex last November. Kasrils was listed as a state witness in Zuma’s rape trial. In the end, however, he only supplied a statement to the court and was not called to testify.
”Malume Ngcuka” is apparently a reference to the former head of the National Prosecuting Authority.
Earlier this week Zuma dismissed suggestions that President Thabo Mbeki had played a part in his rape trial and upcoming corruption trial.
”No, I have not said anything in that direction. I would not want to discuss that matter,” he told the Cape Talk 567 radio station on Tuesday afternoon.
Asked whether he thought it fit that Mbeki should re-stand as ANC president next year at the annual conference of the ruling movement, he sidestepped the issue and said: ”I wouldn’t like to discuss this in the media. That matter is a matter to be discussed by the ANC. I would not like to preempt what the ANC would like to discuss.”
Meanwhile, the ANC said Zuma’s return to his duties as deputy president of the party was not a mere formality.
”The national executive committee [NEC] has to consider and pronounce itself on it,” secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe said on Wednesday.
He told SAfm the NEC would meet in Zuma’s absence on Sunday to consider his return to the second highest office in the party.
”He will have to await the final position of the ANC,” Motlanthe said. – Sapa