In May, Gordhan announced the appointment of several additional directors to the Transnet board. (Oupa Nkosi/M&G)
A late-night Cabinet reshuffle by President Jacob Zuma has prompted calls for resistance against his leadership and fuelled further attempts to have him removed from office.
“What should the public do? Organise!” former finance minister Pravin Gordhan told reporters and treasury staff at his final briefing as head of the ministry on Friday.
Zuma removed Gordhan and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas from the Cabinet on Thursday night.
Supporters of the SaveSA campaign, AngloGold Ashanti chairperson Sipho Pityana and trade unionist Zwelinzima Vavi met in Pretoria on Friday to protest against the firing.
Opposition parties also added their voices to the new wave of anti-Zuma sentiment, hoping to push the president into stepping down or to use the courts and parliamentary processes to have him removed from office.
“This is an exit point for Zuma. If all those who are in the ANC and opposition act in the best interest of the country, Zuma is gone,” said Economic Freedom Fighters commander-in-chief Julius Malema on Friday.
Malema’s party has announced its intention to table a motion of no confidence against Zuma. It said it needed all opposition parties to unite and for 70 ANC MPs to vote with them.
The Democratic Alliance hoped to prevent the swearing-in of five new ministers through an interdict fromthe Western Cape high court. Their application was dismissed.
The EFF confirmed that it had sent a request to Parliament’s speaker, Baleka Mbete, for a special sitting to debate the motion and if she refused, the party would approach the courts.
“We’ve met strategic people inside Cabinet and leaders of churches, business organisations and unions, political formations in and outside Parliament. We are working on a strategy on how best to remove Zuma as a president,” Malema said.
If the motion of confidence fails, the EFF has two other options at its disposal. This week the party leader filed papers for the impeachment of Zuma at the Constitutional Court.
“The man has to be subjected to some form of process in Parliament. It can’t be a ruling of the highest court like that, then it’s business as usual. If you survive impeachment, 783 charges are coming. There is no break for the old man. We are coming for you,” Malema said.
In an attempt to diffuse the furore surrounding Zuma’s reshuffle the ANC released a statement calling for the expression of differing views within its ranks to be seen as a necessary part of its quest to deliver its mandate. The party called for unity.
Yet leaders such as Ramaphosa and secretary general Gwede Mantashe expressed publicly their unhappiness with Zuma’s reshuffle and his failure to consult them on the extent of the changes to the executive.
Even the Thabo Mbeki Foundation said it was unhappy with the little explanation given by Zuma for the reshuffle. The foundation called on the president to elaborate on his claims that making changes to his Cabinet was in the best interests of the public.
“We accept that under normal circumstances there is no need for the president publicly to explain changes to the composition of the national executive,” the foundation said in a statement.
“However both the extent of the cabinet reshuffle and the circumstances in which it has occurred are not normal”.
Three days after the funeral of liberation stalwart Ahmed Kathrada, where criticism of Zuma dominated political speeches, his widow Barbara Hogan said she was shocked that the presidency had cancelled a planned state memorial service without any explanation.
But Hogan said the family had already expressed its doubts about the event.
“When news began to filter through about dastardly deeds being done in the dark corners of this country, many of us in the family began to have second thoughts about whether we would want a commemoration under the auspices of a president who has clearly gone rogue,” Hogan told reporters in Johannesburg.
Kathrada’s commemoration will continue today at the Johannesburg City Hall, with Gordhan expected to address the crowd at 2pm.
The Kathrada Foundation’s Neeshan Balton called on South Africans to take to the streets and make their views known and called on ANC leaders and members as well as Cabinet ministers to “speak up and call on the president in the best interest of the country to step down”.
Friday marked one year since Kathrada penned an open letter to Zuma, asking him to step down.