The Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa (IFAISA) this week launched a petition to recall President Zuma as South African presidential candidate.

The Institute believes that given the compromised position in which Jacob Zuma finds himself in relation to the Public Protector’s Nkandla report, South Africans deserve a better candidate from the ANC.

Paul Hoffman, director of IFAISA, who is driving the petition says: “As a country we are at a significant crossroads. What we need is for Government and the governing party to make brave decisions that will determine whether we will be a successful economy that will be able to provide opportunity for its people or just another failed state. One of these decisions is to recall Jacob Zuma as presidential candidate.

Hoffman says that if the ANC’s commitment to the success of the country, the rule of law and the Constitution is genuine, it must demonstrate this to the people by recalling its candidate.

“Jacob Zuma is too conflicted and too compromised to be a rational choice for the ANC, this is evidenced in his approach to the Public Protector’s Nkandla report. The entire Nkandla project has the supposedly reasonable security arrangements of one man at heart, and that man is Jacob Zuma.

“There is also sufficient overlap between the findings of the Public Protector and the Ministerial Task Team to give any reasonable, responsible and accountable decision-makers cause to question whether the Jacob Zuma is an appropriate choice for presidential candidate in the upcoming elections,” he says.

In a letter sent to ANC Secretary General at the end of March, Hoffman requested that Mr Mantashe consider replacing Jacob Zuma with a more suitable candidate. He said that those involved in corruption, theft and fraud need to be brought to book without delay. He said that corruption, which is often just theft from the poor, is a human rights issue that threatens all we hold dear in the new South Africa.

IFAISA urges all South Africans to add their voice to the petition.

The petition can be found on petition website Avaaz:
Click Here

Paul Hoffman SC
11 April 2014