President Jacob Zuma says he has been taken aback by the ‘vote no’ campaign advocated by the former Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils.
Speaking during the ‘Siyahlola’ programme in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, President Zuma says he is surprised that someone like Kasrils can support such a disenfranchising campaign.
Kasrils campaign has irritated many of his former comrades, but for President Zuma, he will seek an audience with the former Minister.
Kasrils and former deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge’s campaign seeks to encourage the public to either vote for smaller political parties or spoil the ballot during the May 7 general elections as part of protesting against the ANC-led government.
President Zuma says he will find time to engage with Kasrils on this matter. “He himself fought for the right for people to vote and people have got a right to vote in any other way. It’s a very funny view that he has. He was not just a comrade to me – he was a friend, but I think over the years he has drifted to some world that I don’t understand. Maybe at some point I’ll have an opportunity to meet him and engage him. He knows I can engage and I know he can engage as well.”
Ronnie Kasrils campaign has irritated many of his former comrades.
Meanwhile, ANC national spokesperson Jackson Mthembu says Kasrils is among people who are effectively rejecting the leadership of President Zuma.
Mthembu says people have to accept the leadership that the ANC chose through its structures. “All of us know what happened in 2007. We know that President Zuma became president and indeed there is leadership that was elected; in that a number of those leaders got elected in 2012. But having said that, all the issues that Kasrils is referring too are issues that have been investigated by the Public Protector, this government and this ANC has made it a point that whoever was on the wrong should be unmasked and indeed the law must take its course.”
At the launch of the campaign, Kasrils criticised the ANC over many issues, such as the Nkandla report and the Gupta saga.
The campaign has a list of signatories, which included former University of SA vice-chancellor Barney Pityana, former senior civil servant in the fisheries ministry Horst Kleinschmidt, cartoonist Zapiro, Bram Fischer’s daughter Ilse, author and painter Breyten Breytenbach and academics Vishwas Satgar and Devan Pillay.
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