Publication: Mail and Guardian
Issued:
Date: 2008-01-11
Reporter: Editorial
| Publication |
Mail and Guardian
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| Date |
2008-01-11
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Reporter
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Editorial
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Web Link
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www.mg.co.za
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The ANC, blithely ignoring all the warnings before its Polokwane conference,
has got itself in a pretty pickle over Jacob Zuma.
That much was obvious from its national executive committee meeting this week,
which spent hours debating what to do about the
detailed graft, money-laundering and racketeering charges now laid against the
ANC president.
The response has been predictable -- to pledge support for Zuma in his battle
with the National Prosecuting Authority, accused of allowing itself to be used
by political conspirators. As George Bizos and Arthur Chaskalson pointed out
this week, that amounts to an attack on the judge who will try the case, set
down for August. After all, it is not the NPA that will determine Zuma's guilt
or innocence, it is South Africa's constitutionally independent judiciary. If
the NPA has fabricated the case, the court should soon expose this. It should be
remembered that Zuma has been successful in court on previous occasions.
That mealy-mouthed master of evasion, Cosatu
"information officer" Patrick Craven, vehemently insisted that Cosatu supports
the principle of judicial independence and that the issue is the political
manipulation of the prosecutions authority. Will he and Zwelinzima Vavi give an
undertaking that the unions will not seek to derail the judicial process around
Zuma? This is the problem facing Zuma's supporters: how do they "defend" him
without undermining the Constitution they claim to
hold dear?
Given President Thabo Mbeki's interference in the
case against police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, perceptions of
selective justice are understandable. They are reinforced by
growing questions about Mbeki's own contacts with
arms-deal bidders and middlemen. But the unpunished
guilt of others does not mean that Zuma is innocent. The correct course
is surely to press for the NPA to investigate all those
who have broken the law.
Equally disingenuous is the ANC's decision to
conduct its own investigation into the arms deal as an expression of support for
Zuma. The bulk of the charges against him have nothing to do with the arms
procurement -- they revolve principally around his relationship with convicted
fraudster Schabir Shaik. But, in any case, how will a sub-committee that lacks
the NPA's powers of search, seizure and subpoena
and which has no terms of reference, deadline or clarity
about what to do with the information it gathers, make a difference? How
credible will its findings be? Will it use the findings to interfere in the
judicial process? The proposal seems little more than empty posturing.
Two very dangerous, deeply anti-democratic attitudes underlie the ANC's
determination to ensure that Zuma rises to the presidency of the country,
whatever the cost *1. The first, probably rooted in
the apartheid years, is the insistence on viewing leaders accused or convicted
of crimes as victims. Also evident in Tony
Yengeni's case, this denies the equality of all South Africans under the law.
The second is the belief that the ANC, as the elected representative of the
people, has the right to interfere in and overturn
the decisions of constitutionally protected institutions of state, specifically
the NPA. That, ironically, is what the new ANC leadership accuses Mbeki of
doing.
With acknowledgements to Mail and Guardian.
*1 The cost maybe civil war, at least
major civil upheaval.
It is not too far-fetched to imagine.
A not so pretty pickle.
Can one give evidence by video link from a sports pub in Wagga Wagga?