The Congress of the People (Cope) waited until shortly before noon on Friday to release its statement opening with: “Today is April Fool’s Day.”

But the only “ joke” mentioned in the opposition party’s statement was in reference to Parliament having become one during Jacob Zuma’s tenure as the country’s leader.

“Unfortunately‚ from 2009 South Africa has been living a make-belief existence with a president massively exploiting the gullibility of the nation at every turn‚” said Cope’s Dennis Bloem.

“With the free use of scarce state resources to extend patronage in every direction‚ Zuma built a monstrous cabinet packed with innumerable lackeys.

Parliament was “also substantially corrupted”‚ said Bloem‚ adding that “the more embroiled that Zuma became in Nkandlagate‚ the more exotic became the language of the African National Congress (ANC) sycophants and the more daring and reckless their actions”.

Bloem’s comment came a day after the highest court in the country found that Zuma and Parliament had failed to uphold the Constitution by disregarding the public protectors’ report on spending on his Nkandla homestead.

“The power of Zuma’s patronage was everywhere to see. Tongues were tied that should have been kept active‚” said Bloem. “The Constitution was willingly trampled in the process.

“When ANC MPs were forced to choose between the Constitution and Zuma‚ they dumped the first in favour of the latter. Consequently‚ the trust with the nation was broken. Parliament has become a joke.”

Bloem said Zuma must be removed from office “so that the burden of the mountain of patronage that he created can end and state resources can once again be directed to urgent needs of the people”.

“The time for protests has indeed arrived‚” he added.

 “Those in politics who remain silent now will assume a large share of guilt of all that went wrong.”