STATEMENT BY PRINCE MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI MP
PRESIDENT OF THE INKATHA FREEDOM PARTY
 

September 8, 2006

I would like to, once again, express my deepest concern at the media reports about the vulgar and highly personal attacks upon President Thabo Mbeki by declared supporters of Mr Jacob Zuma in recent days in KwaZulu-Natal and elsewhere. These disturbing images are damaging the institution of the Presidency both at home and abroad.

Despite my political differences - and they are wide - with the President, I feel it is incumbent upon me to, once again, emphasise that Mr Mbeki is the First citizen of South Africa and should be accorded the respect and dignity his sacred office deems.

I find it incredulous that in the very same week that the President is batting for South Africa - such as hosting a leader of one of the most important emerging investors and trade partners, Mr Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation - supporters of the ruling-party and Mr Zuma would resort to such despicable conduct.

In my book, such behaviour is neither consonant with our African tradition nor concordant with the culture of respect and deference to our leaders and institutions which one associates with the Zulu nation. I therefore unequivocally condemn it.

I have already explicitly spelled out my concerns in my intervention in the Presidency Budget Vote on June 9 2006. The succession issue, I said, is not one that just affects the African National Congress, but all of us. Once duly elected, the President is the national leader of all who call themselves South Africans.

It was for these reasons that I suggested that, in the future, the Office of the Head of State and Government could be separated to prevent the dignity of the Office of the Head of State being tarnished. In the meantime, however, we are governed by a Constitution which combines the two Offices.

So I appeal to Mr Zuma's supporters - and others - to conduct this important and necessary debate in a manner befitting the continent's most powerful democracy.

If the present culture of impunity is allowed to continue to flourish, then whoever succeeds Mr Mbeki will be prey to the treatment that he has received.

This can only serve to erode our hard-won sense of national unity and democratic gains.

The price of freedom, it has been said, is eternal vigilance. We must all be vigilant in protecting our freedom at this important moment in our nation's history.

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