Barbara Hogan says Zuma has "gone rogue"
Days after she buried her partner, Barbara Hogan added her name to the list of voices issuing rally calls to South Africans to stand together and take back their country.
2 October 2008. South Africa. New Minister of Health, Barbara Hogan.
An official memorial service for ANC stalwart Ahmed Kathrada, planned by the Presidency for Saturday morning, was cancelled on Friday without any reasons given.
The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Gauteng section of the South African Communist Party (SACP) said that they would hold their own memorial service anyway.
The three organisations held a joint press conference on Friday and Kathrada's window, Barbara Hogan, who served on the Cabinets of Thabo Mbeki and Zuma as Minister of Health and of Public Enterprises, had some strong words for Jacob Zuma.
"We welcomed a commemoration service hosted by the Presidency because that is what is befitting of a giant of our country.
"But let me say that last night, when the news began to filter through, about the dastardly deeds that were being done in dark corners, many of us in the family began to have second doubts whether we would want a commemoration under the auspices of a president who has clearly gone rogue.
"Who has clearly defied his own party. You have a deputy president saying, clearly and forthrightly today, that the removal of the finance minister and his deputy was based on a dubious intelligence report.
"You have the secretary-general of the ANC saying loudly and clearly: the list of ministers who are to be replaced did not come from the ANC, it came from another side.
Hogan, like a number of other key political figures, issued a rallying call for South Africans – and political organisations – to come together and fight against what is happening.
"Looking to citizens of our country, I think all of us are utterly dismayed. We live in this country, we love this country and we have hopes.
"The majority of people live desperate lives of poverty and marginalisation. That a president can think to withdraw a finance minister and his deputy from an incredibly important international roadshow, to think that he thinks he could just do that and there is no consequences for the poor, shows what an inept president we have.
"For the ordinary citizens of this country, it is time for your voices to be heard. This is not a time for petty differences amongst us to divide us.
"Our sworn enemies – and we all have our little fights in the progressive movement – can no longer be enemies. We have to form a broad, mass democratic alliance here to take on the forces of evil, and the rogues, and the thieves who want to steal our country from us.
"There are two clauses around the Presidency in this Constitution which deal with a president that is not behaving presidentially.
"The Constitution provides a basis for remedying that fact. This is not silly issues of factional battles in the ANC, these are greater and grander projects about the accountability of our leadership to the rank-and-file of our people.