Publication: Independent Online Issued: Date: 2007-11-01 Reporter: Christelle Terreblanche

Mbeki, Zuma Urged to Step Aside

 

Publication 

Independent Online
Date

2007-11-01

Reporter

 Christelle Terreblanche

Web Link

 www.iol.co.za

 

A former ANC MP has called on President Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma to step aside in the ANC's succession race to make way for a leadership that could recapture the vigour of the first few years of democracy.

Andrew Feinstein made the call on Wednesday night at the launch of After the Party, his book on the events during his term as deputy chair of parliament's watchdog standing committee on public accounts (Scopa).

He resigned in 2001 in protest over the government's interference with parliament's efforts to launch a fully fledged investigation into alleged corruption in the R60-billion arms deal.

"Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma have failed to show the moral resolve that this country needs during the past few years, which it had during the first five years of our democracy and urgently requires again.

"So my feeling is very strong that they should step aside for other leadership untainted by the past few years."

He supported those in the ANC like Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan, who made a strong plea for a younger generation to be given a chance to lead the party, Feinstein said later.

He said investigations into the arms deal should continue.

The book gives a frank account of how he and others, such as then-Scopa chairperson, Gavin Woods, then an IFP MP, were frustrated in their attempts to have the arms deal investigated.

Feinstein thanked Woods, now a Nadeco MP, for his "great courage" during the "bleak time" six years ago when he lost hope for the party he had passionately believed in.

He said it was important that arms deal investigations continued.

"I think the reason it is so important is because the arms deal was - I believe - the beginning of the moral decline in the ANC, which led to a situation where our institutions of democracy are being undermined in favour of the interests of the party," he said.

"And I believe many of the institutions, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and parliament, have been unable to recover their vigour and play their role.

"I think we now have an opportunity to regenerate... but we need a new generation of leaders in the ANC and the country to be able to do that."

Feinstein welcomed to the book launch some of those who had kept arms deal investigations alive. One was Terry Crawford-Browne, whose own account of his struggles with the government around the deal Eye on the Money was published recently.

Another was the NPA's Billy Downer, SC, the prosecutor who first charged and secured a conviction *1 for businessman Schabir Shaik.

Feinstein said South Africa could recover the optimism of the first few years of democracy because there were people of "enormous integrity" who could lead the country *2.

* This article was originally published on page 10 of Cape Argus on November 01, 2007

With acknowledgements to Christelle Terreblanche and Independent Online.


*1       But was required *3 to withdraw charges of bribery and corruption against Thomson-CSF, with the exactness of hindsight showing that a conviction would certainly have been secured.

And was required *3 not to charge Jacob Zuma with bribery and corruption, again with the exactness of hindsight showing that a conviction would certainly have been secured.


*2      Sorry Andrew, under which rock are they hiding?


*3      Mainly by the likes to two asses, Dr Penuell Maduna and Adv Bulelani Ngcuka.