DA welcomes Winnie's quit vow

2003-04-25 13:24

Donwald Pressly

Cape Town - A pledge by African National Congress Women's League president Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to resign as an MP has been welcomed by the official opposition Democratic Alliance - but the ruling party has not reacted yet.

A spokesperson for Smuts Ngonyama, the ANC's national spokesperson, said the ANC would respond to the five-year jail sentence imposed on Madikizela-Mandela later on Friday. Former president Nelson Mandela's ex-wife told Pretoria media she would resign from her party positions "in the fullness of time" - including that of president of the league and member of the ANC national executive committee.

DA chief whip Douglas Gibson, who first sought the investigation into Madikizela-Mandela's non-disclosure on the parliamentary register of income from donations and from the family museum, said she would be doing "the correct thing in resigning from parliament".

Gibson said MPs and parliament itself had suffered under a cloud "because of the Winnie Mandela and Tony Yengeni scandals and the new cash for air-tickets scandal".

"It is time to stop the rot and Mrs Mandela's departure from parliament is a good start," said Gibson.

Attack on judicial system

Meanwhile, Freedom Front leader Pieter Mulder objected to the Congress of South African Students saying on Thursday that the guilty verdict on Madikizela-Mandela was because of "the magistrate and prosecutor being white and that the court represents the Boer regime".

Mulder said this was a racist statement and an open attack on the judicial system.

"It can only be guessed at what the ANC and Cosas reaction would have been if similar statements were made from the other side about black judges and courts."

He noted that former president Nelson Mandela had to act "as an example to them" with his response to his former wife's guilty verdict saying that justice had taken its course.

Mulder said Cosas's threats to burn down jails and "their racist comments" were out of step with the post-1994 South Africa.

- I-Net Bridge (Business)