'SA will not go down Zim path'
2008-07-04 20:03
Cape Town - Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille on Friday forecast gloomier prospects for SA under a Jacob Zuma presidency, but said she did not foresee the country following the same path as Zimbabwe.
There were signs Zuma would take "the ANC's assault on the values of our Constitution" considerably further than his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, she warned in a weekly newsletter, published on her party's SA Today website.
"Part of Mbeki's legacy will be the abuse of institutions of state to advance the interests of a faction of the ANC. This is not about to change under Zuma.
"On the contrary, there are indications that Jacob Zuma will take the ANC's assault on the values of our Constitution a considerable way further than his predecessor. He and his allies show increasing disdain for the rule of law."
This was typified by the disbanding of the Scorpions to protect ANC leaders, promises of bloodshed should Zuma be convicted, and the prospect that Judge John Hlophe was deployed to influence Constitutional Court judges to rule in favour of Zuma, Zille said.
Incapacitated state
Further, on the economic front, the ruling party - under the influence of its alliance partners, the SA Communist Party and the Congress of SA Trade Unions - was promoting policies that would "increase the intervention of an incapacitated state, squeeze out the private sector, and precipitate economic decline to the detriment of all, especially the poor".
Noting that commentators and other opinion-formers had speculated whether SA was on the same "seemingly inevitable" path as Zimbabwe, she said there were a number of factors militating against this.
The first was having witnessed the crisis unfold in Zimbabwe, "we have an object lesson in the importance of preventing a country slide into tyranny". It was essential the ANC learned the right lessons from this crisis.
The second was SA's vocal and active civil society "that will fight for SA to stay on the constitutional straight and narrow".
In every area of South African life, wherever a challenge arose, there were individuals and organisations mobilising, independently of the state, to address it.
Zille also noted the need "for business and civil society to continue playing their part to keep the ANC in check".
Patronage politics
Part of this role was to resist the temptation for business to become trapped in the web of patronage politics, where business opportunities were defined by political connections and affiliations.
"A strong, independent business sector in which opportunities are defined by entrepreneurship, skill, and hard work (not political connections) is essential for a successful transition to a sustainable democracy."
A third reason why SA would not go the way of Zimbabwe was the presence of a strong opposition.
"We will not go the way of Zimbabwe because there is a strong opposition in SA to check and balance ANC excesses and offer workable policy alternatives," Zille said.
- SAPA