Publication: Cape Argus
Issued:
Date: 2008-08-02
Reporter: Karyn Maughan
Reporter: Kashiefa Ajam
Reporter: Siyabonga Mkhwanazi
Reporter: Sapa
| Publication |
Cape Argus
|
| Date |
2008-08-02
|
|
Reporter |
Karyn Maughan, Kashiefa Ajam,
Siyabonga Mkhwanazi, Sapa |
|
Web Link
|
www.capeargus.co.za
|
ANC president Jacob Zuma will not go on trial for corruption.
Monday's long-awaited court appearance in Pietermaritzburg will be the official
start of a concerted and unprecedented three-pronged strategy to ensure he never
sits in the dock again.
He will utilise every legal avenue to delay the trial.
The ANC will consider changing the Constitution to prevent a sitting president
(as Zuma will be from next year) being prosecuted.
The ANC will consider a blanket amnesty for all involved in the controversial
arms deal.
The comprehensive legal, political and social strategy is such that the effect
of Zuma's bruising defeat in the Constitutional Court this week could be
neutralised.
Yesterday, the ANC admitted as much when its leaders returned from a trip to
Mozambique.
"Jacob Zuma will lead the ANC's election campaign. We are not assuming that he
will be absent for it. We have made a commitment to Zuma to be at his side at
court and we will be at his side when he goes to the Union Buildings," said
secretary general Gwede Mantashe.
He said the party hoped the case would be thrown out on Monday. Every member of
the ANC's national executive committee will be in Pietermaritzburg in support of
their president.
The KwaZulu-Natal capital is expected to be brought to a standstill as the
party's youth league buses in members from across the country - a strategy that
will begin in earnest tomorrow.
In what is expected to be the largest massing of tripartite alliance members
since the fall of apartheid in 1994, Mantashe said the ANC had asked its members
to travel to KZN in solidarity.
This week the league's KwaZulu-Natal provincial leadership vowed to close
Pietermaritzburg for the two days Zuma is in court.
Trade unions and taxi bodies will all be stopping operations in support of Zuma
and the SACP and Cosatu have vowed to come out in solidarity.
ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema yesterday announced the launch of a
signature campaign which includes an SMS service where members of the public who
felt aggrieved by the outcomes of Zuma's court cases could send messages, at a
cost of R3 each.
The initiative is being driven by the uMkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans'
Association.
"We are hoping to get a million signatures by Monday and if the court does not
throw out the case then we will take our lawyers and submit those petitions as
friends of the court. There will be an election. (Zuma will be president),"
Malema said.
ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa conceded yesterday that Thursday's
Constitutional Court ruling had been a "huge blow", but it had been expected.
"It is a political case. This is first time I've seen a case where an accused
has had to wait for five years for charges to be laid. And I've also never seen
charges change as often as they have with (Zuma)."
This was echoed by ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe in yesterday's online
newsletter, ANC Today. He said Zuma was being "persecuted rather than
prosecuted".
On Thursday, the Constitutional Court upheld a ruling by the Supreme Court of
Appeal that the warrants for the search and seizures of documents from the homes
of Zuma and his offices had been lawful.
The seized documents can now be used in his criminal trial in Pietermaritzburg,
but by the time the trial can actually proceed Zuma could well be president.
Zuma's lawyers will apply for his prosecution to be thrown out on Monday, on the
basis that the state did not allow Zuma the chance to "make representations"
about the charges against him.
Should Pietermaritzburg High Court judge Chris Nicholson find against Zuma, his
attorney Michael Hulley has confirmed that he will appeal - a process that could
go all the way to the Constitutional Court and take at least two years.
If Zuma fails there, he will then bring a separate application for a permanent
stay of prosecution. This process could again take years to complete, making it
highly probable that Zuma will be president should he finally have to defend
himself in a court of law.
According to University of the Western Cape professor Pierre de Vos, the ANC
could, after the elections next year, even amend the Constitution to prevent a
sitting head of state being prosecuted.
A two-thirds majority at the polls would open that door.
*1
With acknowledgements to Karyn Maughan,
Kashiefa Ajam, Siyabonga Mkhwanazi, Sapa and Cape Argus.
*2 Don't vote to allow criminals to go free.