Publication: Mail and Guardian Issued: Date: 2008-01-04 Reporter: Editorial

Unsound Fury

 

Publication 

Mail and Guardian
Date

2008-01-04

Reporter

Editorial

Web Link

www.mg.co.za



This is to be the bellwether year for South Africa's democracy when we either build on the Constitution's dictate that we live by the rule of its law and the breadth of its vision or we turn that Constitution into a loud-sounding nothing by becoming a nation of populists given to keeping skeletons in cupboards. Here are the key conundrums facing South Africa:

1       Jacob Zuma: Now in office as ANC president after a convincing win at the Polokwane national conference, Zuma is also facing a set of super charges by the National Prosecuting Authority. These include racketeering, corruption, fraud and tax evasion. This will arguably be the most serious political and corruption trial in South Africa's history *1. It is set down for August 2008. Will it be allowed to continue?

The jury is out as Zuma's shock troops up the ante against the charges. At stake is the rule of law. For Zuma, the decision is whether to take us backward or forward. He can take us backward by insisting that he is the victim of a political conspiracy by a biased institution. His team will argue that the NPA does not understand the bonds of struggle loyalties and the depth of support one comrade will extend to the other *2. But this is an argument of an age past, an age before corrupt rents could be extracted from the granting of tenders.

Zuma can take us forward by standing trial and keeping his loud men at bay. If he is acquitted, then the stage is set for him to take the Presidency come 2009 with a clear conscience and a legitimacy he will never enjoy if this case is not allowed to proceed.

2       Them and us: There is an anti-democratic pulse shooting through the Zuma camp as it panics in the face of the charges facing Zuma. He has come to power with the help of a powerful alliance of youth, securocrats and the trade unions.

A representative of each component has, this week, attempted to shoot an early arrow into the heart of the charges. Former intelligence chief Billy Masetlha fired the first salvo at a victory party of MK veterans. "... If they [the government] defy us [the ANC], we will punish them," he is quoted in the Sunday Times as saying. He was referring to an ANC resolution to incorporate the Scorpions into the police service. This threat and the resolution are clear attempts to remove the sting from the crime-fighting elite corps. Over 20% of the members of the national executive committee of the ANC have faced charges by the NPA and investigations by the Scorpions or the SAPS, and there is little doubt that many politicians would be happy to see the Scorpions rendered impotent.

But Masetlha's statement is worrying at a more fundamental level, for it points to a complete misunderstanding of the relationship between the government and the ANC. It sets one up in opposition to the other, suggesting that the two centres of power which Polokwane has bequeathed us will result in a constant tussle for authority rather than a negotiated consensus. This will be deeply destabilising for the country. A more mature compact must be struck.

3       Young guns and bloody labour leaders: ANC Youth League president Fikile Mbalula and his team of Young Turks seem giddy with power. Mbalula has also fired a broadside at the charges, insisting that he sees the hand of President Thabo Mbeki behind them.

Mbeki is a lame duck and is quickly losing his institutional power. It's unlikely that he ordered that the charges be laid and they have, in fact, been in the pipeline for weeks. Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla has dodged the NPA for several weeks and it could not move without briefing her.

But Mbalula's statements suggest a far more ominous future for independent institutions which dare take on powerful figures. They will never be seen as acting in the public interest with a constitutional mandate to do so without "fear, favour or prejudice".

The league's method of dealing with the NPA and the media is to anaesthetise with damaging rhetoric and cauterise with political intimidation. They must not be allowed to do so; neither must labour leaders, who were once warriors for democracy but who increasingly sound like warmongers.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions threatened to bring its members onto the streets should Zuma be re-charged and it repeated the promise this week - with ominous additions. "People are now angry. This time there will be blood spilt in the courtroom. People are ready to put themselves in the frontline. We will not be held responsible for their anger," said Cosatu's KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Zet Luzipho.

4       Eyes off the ball: 2008 promises, again, to be a year of intense party politicking where the eye will be taken off the really important balls. The matric results released last week are one such ball. They were absolutely useless. This is not to denigrate the work of matriculants who did brilliantly or of those who beat difficult circumstance to pass. But we kid ourselves if we see progress in the latest results.

Our children are not being equipped for development or wellbeing, let alone for the demands of the 21st century. Education Minister Naledi Pandor said as much in her assessment of the results. Scholars are failing and flailing because they do not have the rudiments: textbooks, teachers who are in the classroom and basic administrative support. It is a true shame that in the hury-burly of politics we are not likely to focus on these most achievable of basics.

With acknowledgements to Mail and Guardian.

*1       Nonsense. This is not a political trial. It is a corruption trial. None of the charges as recorded by the Indictment have the slightest thing to do with politics. None of the prosecutors have the slightest professional inclination towards politics.


*2      Are Jean-Paul Perrier, Yann Leo Renaud de Jomaron, Alain Peter Thetard and Pierre Jean-Marie Robert Moynot also struggle loyalists?

They sure are comrades, but are they freedom fighters?


Zuma can do an easy thing, there no need for be blood spilt in the courtroom nor in the streets.

He need not fight to the bitter end.

He need not spend 15 years in the penitentiary.

Just tell the truth about the R1 million bribe from the pimpernels and all he knows about the rest of the Arms Deal. The pimpernels aren't even facing the penitentiary. Then take a suspended sentence and retire to Nkandla Traditional 100% Zulu Village with the new 4th wife and one year old baby and live in peace and prosperity. The other 24 children will probably come to visit often to, inter alia,  collect their allowances and discuss their matric results.