APA-Johannesburg (South Africa) South Africa’s opposition Congress of the People (COPE) deputy president, Mbhazima Shilowa, has called on President Jacob Zuma to resign over the Sonono Khoza affair, according to a South Africa Broadcasting Corporation report aired here Monday.

Shilowa’s reaction is the latest criticism in the country following the disclosure that Zuma fathered a child with the daughter of the 2010 FIFA World Cup’s Local Organising Committee chairperson, Irwin Khoza, a family friend who also owns one of the most successful football teams in the country, The Orlando Pirates.

Zuma, under heavy criticism from the country’s opposition and civil society groups, has since publicly apologised for “the pain” he caused the nation and his family in fathering Sonono a baby four months ago — only weeks before he married his third wife.

Shilowa said : “We are saying that you cannot make the same mistakes over and over — and then apologise. When he came back from abroad, he basically said, ’Look, yes, I had a relationship with Sonono and this is my child so what business do you have with it ? Please opposition parties and everybody back off’’.”

He added : “The ANC (ruling African National Congress party) said the same thing but, now because the State of the Nation Address is nearing and they do not want him to address the nation with this thing hanging over him,” that was why they (ANC) forced the president to issue an apology.

COPE is the third largest party in parliament dominated by the ANC and followed by the Democratic Alliance (DA).