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Zuma for president - supporters
07/09/2006 16:55 - (SA)
Pietermaritzburg - Cheers and shouts erupted from a 4 000-strong crowd as Jacob Zuma walked on to a stage in Pietermaritzburg's Freedom Square on Thursday after leaving the High Court.
"There is no president like you!" shouted some of Zuma's supporters
A short while earlier, Judge Herbert Msimang had adjourned the State's application for a postponement in his corruption trial.
Msimang said he would deliver his judgment on the State's application on September 20.
Thanked ANC leaders
The former deputy president told the crowds, who had spent the morning keeping up a routine of songs and marching, that the judge would sit and analyse the issue of whether or not to postpone his and his co-accused Thint's trial.
He said he would pick and choose his words as his case was still before court.
He thanked his supporters and said he hoped they would continue making him feel at home.
Zuma thanked African National Congress leaders who came to support him, but said there would always be (political) rivals and "people who checked who was attending his trial".
He did not elaborate on who those rivals were or whether people were checking the trial attendance.
He said the crowd should conduct themselves in a manner that showed they were fighting against what he believed was a case of human-rights abuse.
He paused and laughed during his speech as some of his supporters shouted: "Akekho umongameli onjengawe (There is no president like you)".
After addressing the crowd Zuma stepped off the stage and went to the nearby VIP tent, and joined other leaders, including ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe and SA Communist Party secretary-general Blade Nzimande.
They stayed to listen to two songs by the band Tsunami.
Earlier, Nzimande briefed the crowd on what had happened inside the court and reaffirmed his support for Zuma.
There was an uproar when Nzimande announced that the trial was adjourned until September 20.
" We will be there," shouted the crowd.
Nzimande urged the people to fill Freedom Square to capacity on September 20 and during the vigil to be held the night before.
Don't want trial postponed
Slindlie Nxumalo, who could not hide her excitement when she saw Zuma, flanked by bodyguards.
"We don't want the trial postponed, the State should not have charged ubaba uMsholozi if they had no evidence," said Bongi Ngcobo of Howick in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.
In the morning, Zuma supporters kept up their vigil outside the court, singing and earnestly discussing the case.
- SAPA
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