SA won't be a 2nd Tunisia - Zuma
2011-02-17 09:18
Lizel Steenkamp and Pieter du Toit, Beeld
Cape Town - President Jacob Zuma says he is confident that South Africa will never become "a second Tunisia".
Zuma gave this assurance in an interview with Beeld on Wednesday, amid violent protests about poor service delivery and unemployment in Mpumalanga and North West.
He fervently rejected predictions that South Africa was heading towards a situation similar to that in Tunisia.
"I can tell you there will never be a Tunisia in South Africa. We have a constitutional democracy here. No-one is being repressed; everyone has the right to say what he wants and to vote."
"It is impossible. I use the word again: It is impossible."
One person has already died in Ermelo and 42 were arrested in Boipelo in North West after they threw stones at the police and set a police station on fire.
Dissatisfied poor
Zuma's reaction followed a prediction by Moeletsi Mbeki, political analyst and brother of former president Thabo Mbeki, that South Africa's dissatisfied poor people would turn on the government in 2020.
It would happen when the ANC government could no longer afford the extended welfare system.
Tunisia's head of state resigned last month amid far-reaching and violent public protests, and the government was also disbanded.
Mbeki said the ANC government was using welfare grants to lure poor black people to voting stations and the state would not be able to afford it on the long run.
"The ANC has inherited a complicated society which it barely understands, its fumblings with it are busy turning it into an explosive mixture.
"The ANC leaders are like a group of children playing with a hand grenade. One day one of them will succeed in pulling out the pin, which will kill them all," said Mbeki in an opinion piece.
Fundamental differences
The head of state on Wednesday firmly disagreed with Mbeki in his office in Tuynhuys, while television footage of the Ermelo protest marches flashed in the background.
"I don't want to become personal, because it is not in my nature. But it is easy to be clever, to sit back and to criticise," he said.
Zuma explained there were fundamental differences between the governing circumstances in South Africa and Tunisia. According to him there were no parallels between the history, politics and social conditions of the two countries.
"How and on which basis to you compare apples and guavas? That is how it is with analysts: They analyse and criticise without doing the work or giving alternatives. Really, we don't have to waste too much time on this."
The violence in Ermelo also came up during Wednesday's debate about Zuma's State of the Union address in the National Assembly.
Mduduzi Manana, an ANC MP from Ermelo, pleaded with young people from his hometown for a "ceasefire".
Ceasefire
"Young people, declare a ceasefire, let pupils go to school, don't start fires and loot stores," he said.
"Your impatience is justified, but your frustration with unemployment will be solved, because the president has declared that this year is a year of job creation."
The DA took Zuma to task and criticised him because he gave too little attention to local governmental matters.
DA spokesperson for co-operative governance, James Lorimer, said it was due to corruption, nepotism and collusion that municipalities were collapsing. "Municipal failures are no act of God, they're a direct result of the ANC's failed policy directions."
According to Municipal IQ, an independent online information service, 111 protests were reported last year, compared to 105 in 2009 and 27 in 2008.