Reverend Frank Chikane. (Photo: Gallo Images / Sowetan / Thulani Mbele) Since its launch last week, the Defend our Democracy campaign has received the backing of more than 300 leaders in the public and private sectors. More than 9,000 people countrywide have signed the petition.
Reverend Frank Chikane, a former civil servant and head of the SA Council of Churches in the 1980s, said the aim of the campaign was to push back against people insistent on defying the law and the Constitution.
“It’s not just about the former president [Jacob Zuma] defying the Constitutional Court ruling, but it’s about that dark practice and tendency that has been happening over the years,” he said.
He added that the time has come for ordinary South African citizens to take a stand because “the people are the last line of defence”.
Chikane was speaking to the media after handing a statement of their demands to Justice Minister Ronald Lamola.
The campaign has made it clear where it stands on Jacob Zuma’s defiance of the State Capture commission and the highest court in the land, the Constitutional Court.
Chikane distanced the campaign from suggestions that it is part of the groups that are opposed to the radical economic transformation forces within the ANC who have thrown their support behind Zuma.
ANC veteran Murphy Morobe said the campaign is also aimed at getting people to organise within their communities against all forms of corruption and injustice.
He said the campaign’s focus on leaders who defy the law is not limited to the Zumas of the country, but also targets the likes of Steinhoff’s Marcus Jooste, who has so far escaped accountability for what journalist Rob Rose described as “SA’s biggest corporate fraud” in his book Steinheist. DM