Date: 10/03/2009

Source: Democratic Alliance

Title: DA: Zille: Address by the DA leader at the University of Pretoria

The more power the ANC gets, the more power it abuses. The more power it abuses, the more corrupt it becomes. That is why we must keep the ANC below a two-thirds majority in this election. And this time we can do it, because the ANC has split.

Two-thirds is too much. It allows the ANC to change the Constitution unilaterally. And you can be sure that the ANC will change the Constitution to get Jacob Zuma off the hook. If the ANC gets a two-thirds majority, it will make Zuma's legal problems disappear. Zuma will walk away from his corruption trial a free man. He will join the other cadres who have already been placed above the law.

Two-thirds is too much. But ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe doesn't think so. Last month he said, "We don't want a two-thirds majority, we want a three-thirds majority in any province including the Western Cape". And yesterday he urged supporters to make sure that the ruling party wins the election with at least a two-thirds majority. We all know the eternal truth that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The ANC wants total power so that there will be no limitations on its abuse of power, and its corruption.

Since Jacob Zuma was elected ANC President at Polokwane, the ruling party has systematically abused its two-thirds majority in Parliament to shield Zuma and to further his narrow interests and those of his cabal. The ANC abused its majority to kill off the Scorpions, because the unit had investigated Zuma and other members of his closed, crony circle. The ANC abused its majority to ratify the dismissal of Advocate Vusi Pikoli, the former National Director of Public Prosecutions, because it knew it couldn't "persuade" Pikoli to drop the charges against Zuma.
The ANC killed off the Scorpions in the face of overwhelming public opposition. The ANC endorsed Pikoli's removal from office, despite the recommendations of the Ginwala Commission. In doing so, the ANC showed its contempt for the people, its contempt for Parliament, and its contempt for the Constitution.

Apart from breeding corruption, power also breeds contempt. And absolute power has made the ANC absolutely contemptuous - of the highest law of the land, of independent state institutions designed to check power abuse, and of the people of South Africa.

The reason why Gwede Mantashe is so desperate for the ANC to retain its two-thirds majority after the election - and even increase it - is so that the party can ram through Parliament its so-called "political solution" to Zuma's legal problems.

Disbanding the Scorpions was the first step in that "solution". Firing Pikoli was the second step. And the next step entails the ANC abusing its majority to pass legislation and/or change the Constitution to grant Zuma - in his capacity as sitting President - immunity from prosecution.

That is the ANC's preferred solution, because it wouldn't require Zuma to use his presidential powers to avoid justice - by granting himself a pardon, for example, or by appointing a new head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) who is willing to drop the charges against him.

Even the Freedom Front Plus wants a special deal between the NPA and Zuma. FF Plus leader Pieter Mulder has said that: "It was not in South Africa's interests that the issue be prolonged any more, as it caused economic and political uncertainty at a time when South Africa needed stability on all levels".

The greatest risk to our stability as a country is for a few powerful people to be above the law. This undermines the foundations of our constitutional democracy, and nothing can be a greater risk than that. The FF+ is courting disaster by recommending that we paper over the cracks to pretend that all is well. That is the start of a slippery slope that leads to the criminal state.

A special deal for Zuma will have a seriously destabilising effect. It will undermine confidence in public institutions and cause uncertainty and instability. It will increase political risk and lead to foreign disinvestment. We will be seen as a banana republic whose institutions of state work to protect the politically powerful - and not the people.

We cannot allow the ANC to get the two-thirds majority it needs to strike a political deal for Zuma. There cannot and must not be any political solution for Zuma, contrary to what the ANC says. A political solution would undermine the rule of law and the principle of equality before the law. It would do serious damage to constitutional democracy in South Africa.

It would smash the founding compact of our democracy by elevating the narrow interests of the ANC's ruling clique over the sanctity of the Constitution. Democracy can only and ultimately be safeguarded by constitutionalism, which recognises that democratic and accountable government must be coupled with constitutional limits on the ruling party's power.

A political deal would deligitimise two key institutions of democracy: the judiciary and the NPA. A political rather than a legal settlement would make it extremely difficult for the NPA to prosecute politically sensitive cases in future. By sidestepping the courts, the authority and legitimacy of the judiciary would be permanently dented, and the principle of separation of powers (between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary) would be rendered meaningless.

So we must keep the ANC below a two-thirds majority. That is one of the DA's chief goals in this election, because two-thirds is too much. Two-thirds is too dangerous.

Only the DA is big enough to take on the ANC. Only the DA is big enough to stop Jacob Zuma and the ANC abusing their power. So don't waste your vote on a small party.

But this election isn't just about keeping the ANC below a two-thirds majority. The ANC has split. And when the ANC splits, the DA wins. We are on track to win the Western Cape, and there is a good chance that we will form coalition governments in other provinces, too.

This election is an important milestone in a longer process, which involves the DA consolidating its status as a party of government at local, provincial and national level, and creating a new majority. After this election, we will go on to face the 2011 local government elections, where we will win cities and towns across South Africa. In the final phase of this process, the DA will form the core of national government in 2014. Help us achieve our goals in this election by keeping the ANC below a two-thirds majority, and voting the ANC out of power in provinces throughout South Africa. Vote DA and vote to win!