THE destruction of Mzansi's democracy was planned by people who were against freedom.
Former president Thabo Mbeki laid all his cards on the table and accused uMkhonto Wesizwe Party leader Jacob Zuma of "destroying" democracy during his tenure as head of state.
These were the blunt words of Mbeki who addressed Unisa students on Wednesday, 13 March about socio-political issues and affairs in the country.
Mbeki said Zuma did this by destroying the South African Revenue Service (Sars), which also affected government revenue and deliberately plunged Mzansi into load shedding.
"Take the MK party. You can't say I remain a member of the ANC, but I support a party that wants to defeat the ANC. That doesn't make sense. One of these two things is wrong. So, in terms of those breakaways from the ANC, they didn't break away. They are led by the same people who tried to destroy Sars," he said.
Mbeki was commenting on the impact of the breakaway parties that have emerged from the ANC, the problems of the coalition parties at local level, the impact of load shedding, the leadership crisis that is crippling sustainable development and the state of the country's economy.
Mbeki said behind every decline was a deliberate decision by those who were against democracy.
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According to Mbeki, the history of Mzansi can be divided into three eras, with era one being the years 1994 to 2007, era two being the years 2008 to 2022 and the country is now heading towards era three.
In the first era, things were looking up, the country was growing, there were job opportunities, the constitution and its institutions were established.
In the second era, the country began to move in the opposite direction in the face of the global financial crisis, the shrinking economy, job losses and the ongoing load shedding.
Mbeki said all this happened under one political party, the ANC, which managed to lead the country in both positive and negative ways. All these problems started when the Sars performed poorly in terms of tax revenue.
He said the Nugent Commission of Inquiry into Sars found that some people took the decision to destroy the institution that is responsible for government revenue.
"It's clear that the intention was not to steal but to destroy. There are people who deliberately seek such an outcome. They did not want it to succeed. They knew that the state could not succeed if this revenue was taken away. These are people who did not like our democracy and wanted something else," Mbeki said.
