Dear Petition supporter Thank you for signing this petition. Please encourage all your family and friends to do the same. In order to further promote this petition, I wish to quote an article written by James de Villiers, of News24 on 2017-08-05. My motivation for quoting his entire article is, it is well written, and secondly, it makes an excellent case to have President Jacob Zuma removed with immediate effect. The longer we wait, the more damage will be done to South Africa. "Politically speaking, Kleptocracy is described as a regime where the state is controlled and run for the benefit of an individual, or a small group, who utilize their power to transfer a large fraction/proportion of society’s resources and wealthy to benefit themselves." - and this is exactly what South Africa has become under the leadership of Jacob Zuma. " Cape Town – ANC MP’s should have courage and vote for what they know is right during the motion of no confidence against President Jacob Zuma on Tuesday, regardless of whether the vote is secret or not, says the South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu). In a statement on Saturday, the country’s second-largest labour union, representing an estimated 700 000 workers and founded by ousted Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, said they join “millions of angry South Africans” who are demanding Parliament pass the motion of no confidence in Zuma. ANC MP’s should not “hide behind secrecy” during the vote, the organisation said. “[Zuma has] turned the whole country into a mafia-style, lawless kleptocracy, in which the rule of law and democratic accountability are dead letters. “[Zuma] transformed the African National Congress from being the leader of a national liberation struggle into a cringing apologist for a corrupt leadership.” In the statement, Saftu criticised ANC-alliance partner the South African Communist Party (SACP) for declaring it will defend Zuma during the motion despite telling delegates at its national conference in July that SACP leadership will meet with the ANC to call for Zuma’s resignation. The call for Zuma’s resignation will be seen as empty rhetoric if SACP members in Parliament vote against the motion of no confidence, Saftu said. “At a time of such a life-and-death crisis for the people of South Africa, it would be outrageous for ‘communists’ to hide behind the feeble excuse that they were elected on an ANC ticket to justify keeping in power a leader now exposed as a corrupt, greedy crook.” ‘Return to status quo not the answer’ While the Saftu supports calls for Zuma to step down, it said it rejects those marching on Monday and Tuesday who believe South Africa’s problem is isolated to the corruption of government. "They are just marching for a return to ‘the status quo’ and delude themselves that the problems of the Zuma-era will be resolved by a return to ‘normal’ capitalism or ‘business as usual. "The underlying problems of a monopoly capitalist system, including its inbuilt corruption, and in South Africa its domination by whites, will remain in place." Also read: #UniteBehind coalition vows to help oust Zuma Saftu also criticised the “misappropriated revolutionary ideas and slogans” such as ‘white monopoly capitalism’. “[The phrases have been] turned into empty, demagogic phrase-mongering to try to sound radical, when in practice they are implementing exactly the opposite policies, thus making it harder for genuine revolutionaries to re-legitimise these genuine and relevant ideas. “The solution [for South Africa] lies in the very slogan hijacked by the corruptors - ‘radical economic transformation’, but it needs to be changed to ‘socialist economic transformation’ if we are to really transform the economy.” Socialist economic transformation is the nationalization of mines, banks and other monopolies for citizen gain, Saftu said." " From Democracy to Kleptocracy: South Africa under the leadership of Jacob Zuma - 16 December 2015 Without going any further with this piece, let me speak about the removal of Mr. Nhlanhla Nene as the Minister of Finance as well as his replacement(s) which has been irresponsible and nonsensical decision which has turned our country into a field of a comedy club. It is indispensable to highlight to the president that the problem was never about who replaces Nhlanhla Nene as the Minister of Finance important as it was. However, the real dilemma is more about the level of mediocrity, lack of professionalism, personalization of political matters as well as lack of consultation and openness demonstrated by president Jacob Zuma in the process of removing Nhlanhla Nene as the Finance Minister. The lack of consultation with regards to the decision taken by the president to remove Mr. Nene as the finance minister demonstrated not only dictatorship but the transition of our country from Democracy to Kleptocracy as well. In a democratic society, decisions are not solely taken individually on the basis of anger, anguish vendetta as well as sorrow, but they are taken in solidarity to enhance positive working relationships that promote social progress. Thus, understanding the views of others leads to greater co-operation as well as trust as opposed to violence as well as criticism. In advancing my point, let me explain Kleptocracy. Politically speaking, Kleptocracy is described as a regime where the state is controlled and run for the benefit of an individual, or a small group, who utilize their power to transfer a large fraction/proportion of society’s resources and wealthy to benefit themselves. This has been proven in many instances whereby the president has consumed taxpayer’s money for his own benefits. With Kleptocracy on the upper hand, we have seen the dominance of neo-liberal policies in place within our society, whereby the nation’s resources are centralized at the hand of the powerful. This system has exacerbated greed, bitterness as well as resentment of a powerful man who is afraid and reluctant to see human progress. Under this political regime, we have seen the absence of humanity which has brought animosity as well as anger from the powerful individuals to pursue capital as well as profit accumulation at the expense of the poor. Instead of seeing politics as the contest among people who have clear and stable interests to develop strategies that aims to pursue selflessness struggle for democratic continuation, we have seen a vision of politics as a struggle for power, dictatorship, vigorous capital accumulation permits rising profits for powerful individuals and control amongst people who are motivated by a myriad of ideas. These ideas do not only include their perceived interests, but also their immoral ideals, their pride and so on. Thus, let me just highlight few issues to support the prevailing statement I made at the beginning with regards to the doctrine of Kleptocracy as well as a dictatorship. On the issue Nkandla upgrade, the report by the Public Protectors demonstrated that the president benefited “unduly” to the upgrade of his private residence. As stated above that, in Kleptocracy regime “a large proportion of the societal wealth is used for individual benefits”. The president remained mute with regards to paying some proportion of the money which was ill-spent at his private residence. This leaves the society in limbo and questioning that: will social justice and human rights be ever attained in our beautiful county. The removal of Mr. Nene comes after his reluctance to approve on the estimated R1 trillion nuclear deal as well as his reluctance to buy him a private Jet which was meant to benefit the president. This has been harmful on the economic performance, judging on the basis of economic performance from the perspective of the interests our currency. This also proves that the president has carelessly and unthoughtfully refined as well as a sophisticated democratic system in the promotion of Kleptocracy for transforming the public resources of South Africa into private wealth. As the results we saw the removal of Mr. Nene, the president wanted to implement highly inefficient economic policies, expropriate the wealth of the citizens, and use the proceeds for his own glorification as well as consumption. Thus, this demonstrates that democracy has been disregarded in the rise of kleptocracy. This system has mounted to nothing but enabling a society to be organised in such a fashion that powerful individuals dominate wealthy as well as determine the happiness of the poor. This prevailing system has outlived its harsh youth and matured into a civilized form while democracy becomes outmoded. The powerful individuals seek self-fulfillment which is generated from a tremendous prosperity of the labor power of the poor. I wish our president can learn from John Magufuli, the Tanzanian president “the man of the moment in Africa, the person who dedicated himself on public interest like the late president of Burkina Faso Thomas Sankara” has ban the disgustingly conspicuous and gluttonous consumption of the taxpayer’s money, on unnecessary activities. As Newton's third law states “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”, there are plenty consequences of this immoral as well as inhuman system, immiseration of the people; enrichment of Zuma and his collaborators; destruction of the nation's infrastructure; the transformation of South Africa into the prime staging ground for foreign intervention against other African nations; currency instability, the usage of the the resulting tax revenue as well as the rents from natural resources and potential foreign aid from outside donors for his own consumption. In all these cases, this regime has appeared to have been disastrous to the economic performance and causes the impoverishment of the citizens. This presents empirical evidence that the lingering failure of the development projects in South Africa is not only necessarily associated with the character as well as the attitude of the pre-1994 political regime but it is also rooted in the post-independence political class, which promoted nothing but greedy and materialistic rulers who have looted the massive resources as well as wealthy of the country for their own benefits leaving the people poor, vulnerable as well as desperate. Furthermore, corruption has permeated the political elite and became one of the biggest impediments obstructing South Africans from realising their objectives. The current political regime has drastically changed how states operate. I hope now the South African patriots have come to realization that the development challenges of our country are deeper than poor infrastructural capital, low income, falling trade shares, low savings, slow growth, high inequality, uneven access to resources, social exclusion, insecurity, environmental degradation, HIV/AIDS pandemic, among others but they are deeply rooted without the politics itself. As a result, the failure to help the poor cannot be remedied by electing better politicians or hiring more informed bureaucrats alone, but is the inevitable result of the transformation of the perversities built in the current political doctrine. Without changing the system itself which have proven to have barricaded humanity as well as selflessness, mankind will cease to exist. We are the victim of the political system that made the one whom we voted for enjoys torture, self-centeredness as well as evil. Again, we have seen that the key to progress lies within our voice as well as activeness in the capacity and willingness of patriots from different perspectives to constructively engage each other’s differing perspectives around the common goal of advancing understanding. We have seen this year that towards a greater political stability, economic freedom as well as co-operation, remains a cauldron of instability and economic deprivation enforced by those who possess power which we have the capacity as well as ability through mass solidarity to challenge and abolish. To all the comrade and patriots out there I am saying we have a choice to choose to continue to serve the current political system which has proven to be disastrous to our economy, social existence, as well as environmental aspect of life until there is no memory of human existence remains or to transform the system to achieve democracy. The Patriots must rise up and hold the rulers to account through proper governance mechanisms that will ensure accountability, openness, consultation as well as transparent management of national resources." See source: https://www.news24.com/MyNews24/from-democracy-to-kleptocracy-south-africa-under-the-leadership-of-jacob-zuma-20151215 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI5DNZAvA1M&t=25s