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Jessie Duarte Photo: Archive
- On Tuesday, the Daily Maverick published an op-ed in which ANC Deputy Secretary General Jessie Duarte pointed to the Zondo commission.
- Now he has apologized to the chairman of the commission, Supreme Court Vice President Raymond Zondo, saying he did not mean to disrespect him.
- Duarte assured Zondo of his “deep respect” for the work he is doing as chairman of the commission.
ANC Deputy Secretary General Jessie Duarte apologized to Supreme Court Vice President Raymond Zondo following her scathing opinion piece published earlier this week.
“On February 10 an article was published in my name that, after reflection, I think I owe you an apology,” Duarte said in the letter, referring to the article published in the Daily Maverick on Tuesday.
She said that in no way did she mean to disrespect Zondo personally.
“The article seems to speak directly to you and for this I humbly apologize. It was not my intention to show you any disrespect personally.
“I want to assure the Honorable Vice President of the Supreme Court of my deep respect for you and the work you are doing to highlight the depth of misappropriation in the state and in the private sector,” Duarte said in his apology.
“The article that ran in the Daily Maverick was a reflection of several witnesses who seemed unaware that the current system of our National Assembly is based on a proportional representation system, largely in line with the Westminister model that envisages a deceptive system. “
In the Daily Maverick article, he opined that the testimony in the Zondo commission “therefore shows a serious lack of appreciation of the role that party caucuses play within a democracy like ours.” Duarte also called it “an attack against the people themselves” who voted for the ANC on the basis of its manifesto.
She wrote:
Party discipline plays a key role in ensuring that the mandate given by the people to the party is not compromised and that the social contract remains intact. But again, party caucuses serve as a bulwark against individualistic tendencies, characteristic of constituent grassroots systems, to ensure that the party’s mandate, given by the people, is protected.
“I have watched with interest how some leaders of opposition parties make decisions while speaking. In the ANC, however, decisions on policy and how to execute them go through an arduous set of consultations trying to achieve a broad consensus on whatever Not exactly the dictatorial system described by a skeptical witness with little or no knowledge of the process by which decisions are made in the ANC.
“More worrying is that democratic centralism is now the subject of a commission led by a judge who respectfully practices his trade based on the narrow parameters of current laws.
“One can only hope the Zondo commission doesn’t turn our democracy into a more neoliberal mix than it already is; where we all sound the same and do nothing real to transform our society.
He said he would wait his turn “to speak without fear, without favoritism, but I know that my words and the words of some in our society will not be received without prejudice.”
After the article, she told News24 that she would appear at the commission to testify “if they called her,” but added: “They didn’t call me.”
– With Carien du Plessis
