If Jacob Zuma becomes President and the ANC gets a two-thirds majority on April 22, the powerful will have free rein to engage in power abuse and corruption. That is why we must stop Zuma.

The other day someone said to me: "I don't care if Zuma is corrupt, he has done a lot for us." That is not true. Zuma has done nothing for the people. All he has done is spend R11 million of taxpayers' money getting his lawyers to keep him out of court so that he doesn't have to answer the very serious charges of fraud and corruption against him. That money should have been spent on delivering services like water and electricity to the people. Instead it was used to protect Zuma and further his own interests.

People must understand that when a politician is corrupt, he is stealing from them. Robert Mugabe got rich because he stole from his own people. Corrupt politicians make poor people poorer.

Take the Arms Deal for example. It cost over R40 billion. And what did the people of South Africa get for this huge sum of money? We got weapons that don't work to use against enemies we don't have.

That money should have been spent on delivering services like electricity to people who have to have cook on paraffin stoves and learn by candlelight. It should have been used to supply water to all those communities that run the risk of getting cholera because they don't have access to sanitation. It should have been spent on building houses for everyone that doesn't have a roof over their heads. It should have been used to provide anti-retrovirals to people living with HIV/Aids.

Instead the money was wasted on expensive equipment that we don't need. Why did this happen? Because some politicians in the ANC saw the Arms Deal as an opportunity to enrich themselves and their cronies through kickbacks.

The ANC stands knee-deep in Arms Deal corruption. It doesn't matter whether they now belong to the Thabo Mbeki faction or the Jacob Zuma faction; when the Arms Deal was approved in the 1990s, many people in government got a slice of the cake, no matter how big or small. That cake has made our nation sick. It has given us food poisoning. And we will only start to heal once a Judicial Commission of Inquiry is appointed to investigate all the corruption that went on in the Arms Deal.

People sometimes ask me why I talk so much about Zuma when, apparently, he only benefited a little from the Arms Deal in comparison to others. I don't believe that only Zuma should be investigated and prosecuted for his alleged involvement in the Arms Deal. If there is evidence that anyone benefited corruptly from the Arms Deal, they must be investigated and prosecuted too. That is why we need a Judicial Commission of Inquiry.

Unfortunately, corruption is part and parcel of the ANC's brand. Lindiwe Sisulu, who sits on the ANC's national working committee and led an ANC task team on Zuma's legal problems, acknowledges it. In an interview last week, she said: "When you say ANC, immediately the word corruption comes up in the minds of our people".

Even President Kgalema Motlanthe admits it. He has said of corruption in the ANC: "This rot is across the board. It is not confined to any level or any area of the country. Almost every project is conceived because it offers opportunities for certain people to make money".

The ANC's culture of corruption has spread throughout the organisation. It has hurt the people of Butterworth. In February, the Eastern Cape Minister of Provincial and Local Government, Sicelo Shiceka dissolved the Mnquma Local Municipality. At the time, he said: "Not only are there high levels of corruption in this municipality, but there are also officials who seem to have no interest whatsoever in delivering services to our people".

The ANC councillors are only interested in delivering services to themselves and their friends, and in lining their back pockets. That is why all the mayoral committee members, including the Mayor and Speaker, awarded themselves municipal houses in Extensions 6 and 7. Their houses are large and comfortable, and of a superior quality to RDP houses, which in any event people can only get if they have friends in high places in the ANC.

Under Zuma, the ANC is going to get even more corrupt, because the party follows the example of its leader.

Last week in Hermanus, the ANC's regional treasurer for Overberg, Simphiwe Kalolo, was found driving with 2 400 pieces of abalone in his possession. Kalolo, who is also a senior municipal official, was driving a vehicle with ANC election stickers and photos of Zuma all over it. He was spotted by members of the police's marine unit, who had been tipped off about him. They tried to pull him over, but he refused to stop. He carried on driving.

Kalolo refused to stop because he believed that with Zuma's face plastered all over his car, he could get away with stealing. He thought he was above the law.

That is hardly surprising. By dropping the charges against Zuma, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has created a precedent that individuals in positions of power are above the law and they can bully their way out of trouble. This encourages government officials to abuse their powers, secure in the expectation of immunity from prosecution.

Zuma and Kalolo and the ANC councillors in Butterworth have shown their contempt for the people of South Africa. They don't think they're answerable to the law. They don't think they're accountable to the people who put them in positions of power.

Every South African must take a stand against corruption. You can do that by voting to stop Zuma. The DA is the only party that can stop Zuma and save South Africa from a wave of corruption that will inevitably make poor people poorer. So next Wednesday, stop Zuma. Vote DA and vote to win!

This is an extract of Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille's speech delivered at a public meeting in Butterworth, Eastern Cape, April 15 2009

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