Publication	Mail and Guardian
Date	2005-12-02
Reporter	Matuma Letsoalo
Web Link	www.mg.co.za

Jacob Zuma confessed to senior trade union and communist leaders this week that he had sex with the woman he is alleged to have raped, but that it was consensual.

Impeccable sources also say the alliance leaders, who visited Zuma at his Nkandla homestead last Sunday, also persuaded him not to resign from his post as African National Congress deputy president to avoid pandemonium at Cosatu’s 20th anniversary celebrations in Durban this weekend.

Zuma was expected to announce his resignation on Tuesday following damaging rape allegations against him.

However, he issued a vaporous statement through his lawyer, Michael Hulley, on the same day, saying he was unable to make the announcement because “police investigations into the rape allegations were incomplete”.

“Following allegations in the media regarding charges being purportedly investigated against Mr Jacob Zuma, we have engaged with members of the South African Police Services dealing with the investigation,” Hulley said.

“We are advised that such investigations remain incomplete and that a further period is warranted in order to complete such investigation under the direction of the National Prosecuting Authority.”

The Mail & Guardian established this week that Zuma decided not to announce his resignation after meeting Cosatu’s general secretary and president, Zwelinzima Vavi and Willie Madisha, and South African Communist Party boss Blade Nzimande. They persuaded him not to resign until after Cosatu’s anniversary bash at Durban’s Absa stadium on Sunday.

Zuma, whose support base is mainly in KwaZulu-Natal, is scheduled to address the Cosatu rally.

“There was a fear that if he stepped down before the rally, we were going to be attacked by the masses and this would appear very bad for Cosatu.

“Obviously if he had resigned as the ANC deputy president, Cosatu would have had no choice but to stop him speaking. It would have appeared to the masses that he was being sidelined. It would look as if Cosatu had said he should resign,” said a federation leader who asked to remain anonymous.

Zuma’s support has been ebbing since the rape allegations against him became public last month. It is believed that 80% of Cosatu’s central executive committee last week demanded that the federation should ditch him. This was confirmed by four senior Cosatu leaders.

The erosion of Zuma’s support base continued at the SACP’s central committee meeting last weekend, where the party took a stand against rape and reaffirmed its support for and sensitivity to complainants in rape cases.

Like Cosatu, the SACP said it would support him “through the difficult period he is facing”, but emphasised that “this support was never understood by the SACP to be support for the presidential succession campaign”.

The SACP also rejected the Friends of the Jacob Zuma Trust as a forum to rally support for Zuma and agreed that their backing for him would be expressed within the parameters of the tripartite alliance, rather than “parallel structures”.

The committee also rejected claims of a political conspiracy against Zuma, saying that “such reckless actions that poison the air make it extremely difficult to address the real issues”.

These were the consolidation of a “powerful presidential state” that is “largely centralised and technocratic … eroding collective leadership, traditions of activism and popular mobilisation”.

According to the sources, Zuma told the alliance leaders that the alleged rape victim was his girlfriend and that everyone in his family knew about the relationship.

He is understood to be pinning his legal hopes on family members to testify in court that he had an established relationship with the woman.

However, observers said that even if the sex was consensual, from a moral *1 point of view Zuma would still be wrong to have slept with someone who regarded him as a father figure.

The M&G was unable to get a comment from the alleged victim, who has been in hiding since the rape allegations became public.

But a close friend, who asked not to be named, vehemently denied claims that Zuma had a sexual relationship with the woman.

The Sunday Times last week reported that the police had asked the National Prosecuting Authority to prosecute the country’s former deputy president for rape. However, it is believed that National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli, who is said to be handling the case, had referred the matter back to the police for further investigations. Pikoli’s spokesperson, Makhosini Nkosi, this week said he did not know when the NPA would make a decision on the matter.

Additional reporting by Vicki Robinson

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*1  Some among us might say relativism is true.

Woody Allen might be one of them.

Who would argue with a leader of the Moral Regeneration Movement?