Durban - Former president Jacob Zuma’s supporters are planning to stage a welcome home rally to celebrate his imminent release on medical parole.
Their announcement comes as the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation on Monday maintained that Zuma’s parole should be above board so that it should not be perceived that the law has been bent to accommodate him.
The DA has since taken the matter to court seeking to review the decision by head of the Correctional Services, Arthur Fraser, to grant Zuma parole.
In another case, AfriForum has demanded answers from Fraser, giving him until Friday to reveal how Zuma was granted a reprieve from serving his 15-month sentence for contempt of a Constitutional Court order.
But all of this has not perturbed Zuma’s supporters who are already waiting to hear when he will leave the hospital and return to his Nkandla home.
Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) spokesperson Carl Niehaus said they would keep their ears on the ground and once Zuma was free they would be there to welcome him.
“We are aware that some of our members on the ground are keen and ready to host rallies to welcome president Zuma home … We support that, we are on record saying we support president Zuma and we support his medical parole.
“So, we will make all the necessary arrangements on the ground to welcome him back home,” Niehaus said on Monday.
It is not clear when Zuma will return to his Nkandla home.
Independent Media understands that he is still with the military health services that are treating him and would not be going to Nkandla at least until the end of this month.
RET Champion national chairperson, Nkosentsha Shezi, said their welcome home plans would be co-ordinated with the MKMVA.
“We will be working together to stage the welcome home rally. This would be done like in the past where all our programmes around our support for president Zuma are jointly co-ordinated,” Shezi said when confirming that they were preparing a big rally to welcome Zuma home.
The KZN Interfaith Counci, under the auspices of Bishop Vusi Dube of the eThekwini Community Church in Durban, said they would be trekking to Nkandla as well to give prayer to the Zuma family.
Last month, the council was in Nkandla where they prayed for Zuma to get well. This was after news broke that the former head of state ad taken ill in prison and had to be whisked out to get advanced medical attention.
“We will give the Zuma family time to do their own cultural cleansing and then visit them to offer our prayer. However, we don’t have the date when we will go there because we have no official information when the former president would be freed by his doctors and taken home,” Dube said.
Political Bureau