Zweli Mkhize photographed in November.
Darren Stewart/Gallo Images
- ANC presidential hopeful Zweli Mkhize has criticized the possible return to prison of former president Jacob Zuma.
- Mkhize said that Zuma was too old to go back to prison.
- Addressing a political lecture in Katlehong, Gauteng, Mkhize said Zuma’s possible return to prison showed a lack of compassion on the part of the country’s leaders.
ANC presidential hopeful Zweli Mkhize has weighed in on the impending return to prison of former president Jacob Zuma, describing it as a painful and unnecessary punishment for an 80-year-old man.
Mkhize gave a political conference in Katlehong, east of Johannesburg, on Wednesday, a day after he was announced as the ANC’s presidential candidate.
He compared recent anger over the conditional release of SACP leader Chris Hani’s killer, Janusz Walus, to Zuma’s possible return to prison.
The Constitutional Court ruled that Walus must be released on parole within 10 days.
On the same day, a ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeals declared Zuma’s early parole in 2021 illegal. The former president may have to return to prison and complete his 15-month sentence. He only served three months of this sentence.
Mkhize said these two incidents were a painful reminder of the country’s potential moral bankruptcy.
“People don’t understand the South African psyche that this [Hani’s assassination in 1993] it was the worst travesty of justice for us. We feel the pain that Ma Limpho [Hani’s widow] He is feeling.
“It’s painful, and it’s happening at a painful time when one [Walus] it’s being taken out, and President Zuma is supposed to go in. You see, now it’s painful,” Mkhize told a packed community hall.
He tried to qualify his defense of Zuma and also said that he respected the rule of law.
“We are not discussing whether there was something wrong with the probation. That’s for lawyers and judges. What hits us is what we feel.
“Don’t get us wrong. We voted for the Constitution and we support the law. No one is above the law. But we are also a compassionate South Africa that should understand the challenges and help us reconcile,” Mkhize said.
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“I still don’t understand what it would mean to take an 80-year-old man and put him back in prison. Respect for the courts and the law. If President Zuma was in prison and turned 80, he would be the one told to get out of jail. Now he must go back to jail.”
Mkhize recalled how Zuma’s prison sentence was partly blamed for the July 2021 riots, which led to widespread looting in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
“You can’t have leadership that doesn’t understand the psyche of its people. You have leadership that is out of touch. You get the wrong diagnosis like a doctor treating you for a headache while you have a stomach ache,” Mkhize said. to loud applause.
