South African opposition parties were unanimous in their call Monday night for President Jacob Zuma to go, following the downgrading of the country to “junk status” by ratings agency Standard and Poors.
DA leader, Mmusi Maimane said this was “a clear vote of no confidence in President Zuma, and a direct result of his decision to fire Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas last week.”
Maimane said President Zuma should resign immediately to allow a new administration to stabilise our economy, and to stanch this growing crisis.
The Inkatha Freedom Party said “Zuma has actively pursued a downgrade against all sound advice and warnings; and last week with his rogue cabinet reshuffle he put in the final nail into our economic coffin.”
IFP spokesperson, Mkhuleko Hlengwa, said “on the back of this downgrade by Standard and Poor’s, Mr Zuma must resign.”
The Freedom Front Plus also called for Zuma to go in the wake of the ratings downgrade.
Meanwhile, the Institute of Race Relations said the decision by S&P risks triggering a series of economic setbacks that will affect the living standards of all South Africans directly.
The Head of the IRR’s Centre for Risk Analysis, Mr Kerwin Lebone, said, “the announcement is a considerable setback particularly after the effort that was made by business, civil society, and some government leaders to prevent precisely this outcome”.
Institute CEO, Dr Frans Cronje said, “the downgrade greatly complicates the prospects for South Africa being able to stage an economic recovery. Without a growth recovery, employment growth and revenue collection will stagnate and may even decline”
He said the result will be a series of year on year declines in the living standards of poor and middle class South Africans alike.
“With growth rates having slipped to just 0.3% of GDP in 2016 the prospects for recession will now again appear on investor radars. A priority for policy makers must therefore be to take urgent steps to ensure that South Africa does not now move through a destructive cycle of multiple downgrades,” Cronje said.
Cronje said this will require that last week’s decision to appoint Malusi Gigaba as finance minister be reviewed and reversed.
However Cronje said, “while the downgrade may have been triggered by the reshuffle and the finance minister’s subsequent remarks, the deeper reason for the downgrade is the counter-productive nature of cabinet policy making since 2008.
