Opinion

Parliamentary Speaker Baleka Mbete has ruled that the official opposition cannot put the question of Jacob Zuma's alleged meetings with French businessman Alain Thetard to the deputy president in Parliament. Whether this is a correct interpretation of the sub judice principle or not, is a debatable point.

Certainly the establishment of the facts about such a meeting may have a bearing on the outcome of the Shaik trial that is now in progress, but as the DA has observed, Zuma himself is neither an accused nor a witness in that trial and the question relates specifically to a statement made by Zuma in Parliament in March last year.

Whatever the technical correctness of the Speaker's ruling may be, the general public will come away with two perceptions. The first is that Zuma is ducking (or being enabled to duck) a significant question. The more he declines to deal openly and fully with this matter the more the suspicion will grow that he has something to hide.

It would be naive to suppose that the DA is trying altruistically to provide him with an opportunity to clear his name, but if Zuma did not mislead Parliament with his answer 20 months ago, a clear and honest response now would have that effect. Why, then, does he not welcome the chance to give it?

Secondly, while the credibility of the deputy president seems compromised, doubts are growing about the integrity of Parliament itself in the way that its affairs are managed by the huge ANC majority. From Scopa's initial reluctance to probe the arms deal, through instances like the travel scam allegations and on to the present controversy, a pattern has emerged of the ruling party seemingly using its dominance of parliamentary mechanisms to serve its own political ends rather than to ensure the good governance of the country. The seeds of disquiet have been sown, and are taking ever more firm root.

With acknowledgements to The Natal Witness.