Reaction to Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s calls for Jacob Zuma to abandon his presidential ambitions was muted on Thursday. By Thursday afternoon, Zuma himself had not responded to Tutu’s comments made while delivering the Harold Wolpe Memorial Lecture in Cape Town on Wednesday.
South African Communist Party spokesperson Kaiser Mohau said on Thursday that the party would not be responding to Tutu’s statements. ”He has the right to echo his views.”
He said it is up to the ANC to decide who its leader will be.
Tutu said: ”The best thing he could do for a land he loves deeply is to declare his decision not to take further part in the succession race of his party.”
African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said he was not prepared to comment and that Tutu ”was expressing his own opinion”.
KwaZulu-Natal ANCYL leader Nhlakanipho Ntimbela said he was surprised at Tutu’s statements. ”He can raise his opinion. It is surprising that the archbishop judges [Zuma]. When you go to church, they tell you not to judge. Only God judges,” he said.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) national spokesperson Patrick Craven said the union federation has ”never endorsed or not endorsed” Zuma’s presidential ambitions. ”It is not Cosatu’s role to intervene in the internal matters of the ANC,” he said.
However, he reiterated Cosatu’s support for Zuma in his upcoming corruption trial.
Zuma supporters have been quick to respond to Tutu’s comments by posting their thoughts on the Friends of Jacob Zuma website.
”What is even more intriguing is a man of Desmond Tutu’s calibre’s stance on an ‘inevitable Zuma presidency’. Which interest group is he protecting and what does Tutu have to lose?” wrote one supporter, Mzo.
Another supporter, Mzilikazi, wrote: ”He was crying like a baby during the TRC [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] for us to forgive apartheid murderers, but now he urged the public not to forgive Msholozi. What hypocrisy, Bishop Tutu.” — Sapa