Jessie and Ace show their hand
Jessie Duarte — predictably — is right on the money in her strident defence of Zuma
They’ve been as rare as whites defending apartheid since Cyril Ramaphosa’s victory at the ANC conference in December, but some are finally coming out of the woodwork. While Ramaphosa was in Davos saying that President Jacob Zuma was "anxious" about his future and telling world leaders of his plans to turn the country around, the ANC’s deputy secretary-general, Jessie Duarte, mounted a sterling defence of the Zuma years in an interview with City Press. According to Duarte, Zuma was a model president who made a few mistakes, but was hounded by a ravenous, sensationalist media. "This is one person who has really literally been chased in every possible way. It’s unfortunate, it’s sad, but it’s also our reality. "It started off with a relationship he had with Schabir Shaik and that resulted in some 700 possible charges. It grew and grew, and it’s been growing ever since," she said. Duarte said that Zuma had implemented the National Development Plan (NDP) and was not to blame for the econ...
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