SA's date with Zuma

ANC veterans, civil society and church leaders, and academics yesterday gathered at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg to urge South Africans to stand against President Jacob Zuma, whom they say has breached his oath of office.

They declared that they will not stand by while Zuma "tramples on the constitution".

"On Saturday April 16 2016 we call on people to hold organised discussions in villages, townships, churches, mosques, informal settlements, sports clubs and cultural associations about how we can secure the resignation of President Zuma," the group said.

"We call on you to discuss what is wrong with the country and, more important, what is needed to put it right.

"Freedom Day April 27 is around the corner. We call on everyone to make this a day of action. This year we must use Freedom Day to reclaim a freedom that has been stolen by Zuma and all who are like him."

The group's call was made as the ANC scrambled again to explain its decision not to vote Zuma out of office on Tuesday when parliament debated and voted on his suitability to hold office.

Yesterday the ANC caucus in parliament said it wanted to establish how it was given incorrect legal advice on how to deal with the Nkandla debacle. Chief whip Jackson Mthembu said that ANC colleagues had warned that its position on Nkandla was incorrect.

The fallout on Zuma has been linked to the staggering economy.

Yesterday Standard & Poor's cut its 2016 growth forecast for South Africa by half.

The rating agency, which has South Africa one notch above junk status, warned that pressure on the nation's credit rating was attributable mainly to slow economic growth. It's associate director, Gardner Rusike, said the government's focus on politics and political tension could divert its attention from implementing policies that would boost growth.

In a surprise move yesterday, the ANC's Sefako Makgatho branch in Johannesburg, broke with the party line. It called on the ANC to recall Zuma. The branch said he should appear before either the integrity commission or the national disciplinary committee of the party.

"The president should be temporarily suspended so that he doesn't unduly influence the disciplinary proceedings."

On the steps of the Constitutional Court the civil society group said it would not stop its campaign until the "head of the rot is removed". It said it did not want "one thief to be replaced by another thief".

Among those at the gathering were former ANC deputy secretary-general Cheryl Carolus, former minister of intelligence and senior ANC and SACP leader Ronnie Kasrils, former Constitutional Court judge Zak Yacoob, ANC stalwart Mavuso Msimang, former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and former ANC Youth League president Ronald Lamola.

Vavi said: "We are going through a constitutional crisis, and we have a responsibility to defend our country." Kasrils said Zuma had been taking the country backwards.

He said Zuma's moral values had been questioned when in 2005 he was charged with rape of a child of "a comrade". Zuma was acquitted.

"It was a disgraceful trial. We knew about this problem in exile but we kept quiet and did not do anything about it," Kasrils said.

Carolus said she was pained by what had happened in parliament this week when the ANC protected Zuma, after a Constitutional Court ruling that he had failed to uphold the constitution by abiding by the public protector's directive that he repay some of the public money spent on his Nkandla home

"History has every right to judge us. I never thought I would stand up in public and say how deeply saddened I am by what happened in our parliament," she said.

Academic Prince Mashele called on South Africans to support the civil society movement's call for Zuma to go. He said that unless South Africans acted against Zuma they would become like Zimbabweans, with lives "messed up" by President Robert Mugabe.

In parliament, ANC chief whip Mthembu said the party's MPs were all blinded when dealing with the Nkandla scandal.

"What blinded us when even colleagues were saying to us: 'We think you are in the wrong'? They said so to us. They said it in our face. What blinded us?

"If we have people who are wrongly advising us, and if the government has people who wrongly advise them, we leave that to the government, but as parliament we have to act on who advised us wrongly," said Mthembu. Additional reporting by Katharine Child and Bloomberg