Politics.za

The corruption case against Jacob Zuma has been struck off the court roll!

It seems the prosecution will have to wait until the current appeal against a search and seizure order against Zuma is completed.

The case is not dismissed but the prosecution will now have to refile charges at a later date pending the outcome of the appeal.

For all the talk (by me included) of him being a canny politician Thabo Mbeki is being seriously outmaneuvered here. First he is out of the country during the COSATU congress and now this.

Moeletsi Mbeki is the deputy chairperson of the South African Institute of International Affairs as well as a businessman and political analyst. He is also Thabo Mbeki’s younger brother. On certain issues he disagrees with his brother, for instance Moeletsi has described the current form of BEE, where a few politically connected businessmen are involved in the majority of large deals, as worse than colonialism.

Now when it comes to Jacob Zuma and his supporters amongst COSATU and the SACP I have a feeling their thoughts are more in sync. In fact I think Moeletsi might even be echoing the true feelings of Thabo, who has to self censor what he really feels due to his position as head of the ANC, which all but forbids public disagreement between senior members. In a recent interview Moeletsi tore into COSATU and the SACP accusing them of forgetting about their mandate to protect workers by focusing on getting Zuma into power.

Mbeki says Cosatu and the South African Communist Party (SACP) are pre-occupying themselves with the job of one individual instead of addressing the issue of the welfare of the masses. He says the Jacob Zuma corruption trial and whether he becomes the ANC president or not is an ANC matter and not Cosatu’s.

In another interview he states that Zuma, despite having no economic and political policies, is trying to pressure the ANC to elect him president:

If he had better policies he would have produced them long ago, but he hasn’t. He just wants the power.

He also accusses COSATU/SACP of using Zuma as a (seemingly willing) puppet in order to take control of the ANC.

What Cosatu is trying to do is to manipulate the leadership process of the ANC so that it ceases to be a transparent process and so that the leadership is open to appointment by secret groups operating outside the rules of the party
...
The best-case scenario is that they think they will manipulate him and dictate economic policy to him. The more cynical view is that these guys — [Cosatu general secretary] Zwelinzima [Vavi] and [South African Communist Party General Secretary] Blade [Nzimande] — want to put JZ in power because they expect to become ministers in his cabinet.

Update: Richard Calland also writes about COSATU abandoning their mandate to workers.

A month ago we wrote about an article that seemed to imply that the IFP were implicitly supporting Zuma. After all the IFP are Zulu nationalists and Zuma’s rhetoric (100% Zuluboy!) is leaning more and more in that direction especially when he speaks in KwaZulu-Natal. However IFP leader Mongesuthu Buthelezi has come out strongly against JZ’s band of court supporters calling their attacks on Mbeki ‘despicable’

Despite my political differences – and they are wide – with the president, I feel it is incumbent upon me to, once again, emphasise that Mr Mbeki is the first citizen of South Africa, and should be accorded the respect and dignity his sacred office deems.

Well that kind of throws a spanner in the works of the IFP-supports-Zuma conspiracy, although perhaps Gatsha is planting some disinformation to confuse everyone. It’s really getting hard to keep track of who is supporting who in this thing.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has urged Jacob Zuma to give up his pursuit of the presidency, stating:

I for one would not be able to hold my head high if a person with such supporters were to become my president…

This isn’t the first time Tutu has commented on the internal affairs of the ANC. In November 2004 Tutu and the ANC got into a war of words after he called them “unthinking, uncritical, kowtowing” yes men. At the time COSATU/SACP came out in support of Tutu’s statements.

Now that Tutu is criticising their man their response is a bit more muted. The SACP has stated that Tutu has “a right to air his views”. Even the ANCYL were suprisingly restrained with KZN leader Nhlakanipho Ntimbela saying that he was suprised but Tutu can “raise his opnions”. COSATU even used the opportunity to give themselves an out by claiming to never have actually endorsed Zuma in the first place.

This is all a bit strange I was expecting a full on attack mode response from COSATU/SACP/ANYL. Perhaps Zuma isn’t worth the effort to argue anymore?

It seems to me that the culture in the ANC of placing disdain on any kind of public statement of political ambition might come back to haunt them. Due to this policy worthy contenders to the presidency are kept silent for fear of somehow offending some unnamed concensus. Now while the old saying goes that those who seek office should be the ones who are prevented from attaining it, the reality of the situation is that someone has to lead and I’d prefer to at least have an idea who is in the running officially beforehand.

Another consequence of the ANC’s policy is that the leadership news vacuum is filled with either speculation, as witnessed by the recent reports on whether Cyril Ramaphosa had declared his interest in running, or populist cheering, from Zuma’s supporters (with no doubt tacit approval from Jay-Z). With Zuma now having stated that he feels he can lead the ANC and therefore South Africa, he has become the only ANC politician to do so and no doubt this will kick his supporters into overdrive, potentially dominating the leadership debate until either the ANC NEC elections in 2007 or another candidate comes forward.

Zuma’s populist strategy could also mean bad things for the ANC should he not be chosen, especially if he is the sole public candidate. If another candidate is selected in the NEC elections (and this is assuming Zuma survives the corruption trial unscathed) especially one who has not done any public compaigning, his supporters will be ticked off to say the least and considering his base in KwaZulu, the province with perhaps the highest rate of political violence today, I see potential for a flare up.

City Press is reporting that Cyril Ramaphosa, former ANC politician (he’s still an NEC member) and no arch-capitalist, has thrown his hat into the race for presidency of the ANC, and therefore the title of President of the Republic of South Africa. Supposedly he still has the backing of Nelson Mandela, who backed Ramaphosa to take over from him in 1999 but was deftly out maneuvered by Thabo Mbeki.

Now although Ramaphosa is not my first choice (T-Money for Prez!) I’m glad that someone, anyone, has decided to publicly state that they could be President besides Jacob Zuma (who doesn’t publicly say that, his supporters are his proxy voice). Zuma’s supporters have been using the period of time between his rape trial acquittal and the start of his corruption trial effectively and have been using provincial ANC/COSATU/SACP conferences to put pressure on provincial leadership to support Zuma largely unchallenged.

Jacob Zuma has unleashed a flurry of defamation lawsuits against a number of media outlets – Jonathan ‘Zapiro’ Shapiro, The Star and Highveld Stereo are named.

Now IANAL so I can’t comment with much authority on the validity of Zuma’s claims especially in an area like defamation where standards differ greatly worldwide so take everything I say from here on with a kilogram of salt. Zuma’s lawyers state that the cartooms, opinion pieces and songs in question have ruined his clients “dignity”, which was the same reason given by the judge in ordering the Sunday Times to gag their publications of the Danish/Mohamed cartoons. It seems Zuma’s lawyers (which include former Conservative MP Jurg Prinsloo) will be using the same tactic of using the Constitutional ‘Right to Dignity’ (which still irks me).

However the fact that the majority of what Zuma is suing for are opinion pieces based on his own actual testimony in court or are works of satire I hope would mean that he doesn’t have much of a case. But then I thought the Judge Mohamed Jajhbay would dismiss the gag order against the Sunday Times over the Danish cartoons in short order and I was proven wrong.

As I noted in a previous entry according to ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe has denied that Zuma will be dragged before the ANC NEC to answer for some of his mutterings during his rape trial, despite ANC Chairman Masouia Lekota saying otherwise.

However at the bottom of this article it states

Instead, the national executive committee resolved that, due to his request to be excused from the committee discussion on matters arising from his trial, the ANC’s officials would brief Zuma on issues raised during the course of the discussion, “affording him an opportunity to comment on them”.

That sounds like meeting to me. Sure they don’t mention who will be in the meeting but do you think Zuma will be using his “opportunity” to comment to some low level ANC beaurecrats?

After Jacob Zuma was acquitted in the rape trial it seemed the ANC had no choice but to support him fully once again. Not so fast. It seems the ANC NEC is going to call Zuma to account about some of his utterances during the trial. As ANC Chairman (and Minister of Defence) Mosiuoa Lekota explains:

...there are a number of issues and questions they (the NEC) want Zuma to explain…

Tribunals and commissions like this are a hallmark political weapon of Mbeki. He used the Hefer commission during Schabir Shaik’s corruption trial to make Mo Shaik look like an idiot and Bulelani Ngcuka like the most honest cop in South Africa and no doubt he had a hand in making sure this goes forward as well.

Zuma will be before a panel comprising Mbeki, Lekota, ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe, Deputy ANC Secretary General Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele and ANC Treasurer Mendi Msimang. I would kill to be a fly on the wall of that meeting. I expect the tension will require a blowtorch to cut, that is if it doesn’t degenerate into a chair throwing shouting match of epic proportions.

Update: ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe has denied such a meeting will take place.

Poor Ronnie Kasrils. His dream job is turning into a complete gemors. As if the hoax email saga, unlawful investigation and subsequent firings of NIA high ups wasn’t enough it seems those crazy kids (although we wouldn’t call 35 year olds kids) at the ANCYL are going to query him during their witch hunt investigation into whether he had any role in the charges against their lord and saviour Jacob Zuma.

Let the incomprehensible, badly spelled press releases flow!