Heavyweights are behind efforts to keep Zuma out of jail. For the past 12 months, the ANC leadership has devised wide-ranging strategies to save its president, Jacob Zuma, from facing corruption charges in court.

The ANC’s national working committee, which oversees the daily running of the party, in many meetings deliberated about the issue. The committee assigned minister of housing Lindiwe Sisulu to co-ordinate the efforts to assist Zuma. Among other things, Sisulu procured the services of former judge Willem Heath to provide advice on the ramifications of the arms deal.

On several occasions since March last year, Heath addressed committee meetings that were attended by between six and 15 people at a time. He is believed to have repeatedly stressed in these meetings that Zuma was not a major player in the arms deal. Zuma, who is a member of the committee, did not attend these meetings.

Some of Heath’s legal opinions made their way to the National Prosecuting Authority via Zuma’s legal team.

Only in a few instances did Heath meet members of Zuma’s legal team, because he was not allowed access to their strategy.

It was as a result of Heath’s advice, among others, that the ANC joined the Zuma case as a friend of the court.

Prior to Heath’s involvement, the ANC established an “arms deal committee” comprising national executive committee members Sisulu, ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe, treasurer-general Mathews Phosa, Cyril Ramaphosa, Jeremy Cronin and Siphiwe Nyanda. This committee was meant to “gather facts” on the arms deal with the intention of assisting Zuma in his quest to thwart the corruption charges.

As the ANC implemented its post-Polokwane strategies to save Zuma, NPA officials began making statements to some ANC leaders to substantiate the party’s claims that Zuma’s prosecution was politically motivated.

One ANC leader even claimed that the party was in possession of NPA officials’ affidavits revealing political meddling.

While Zuma’s court saga continued ­ first the victory that came with Judge Chris Nicholson’s ruling that Zuma’s prosecution was driven by the political meddling of former president Thabo Mbeki, then the subsequent reversal of this judgment in the Supreme Court of Appeal ­ the ANC maintained in public statements that the case was politically driven and not in the public interest.

The first prize for Zuma and the ANC was to have the NPA drop the charges on the strength of Zuma’s representation that there was no corrupt intent in his relationship with convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik and that his prosecution was tainted by political meddling.

With the NPA now poised to drop the charges after Zuma’s legal team unearthed records of taped conversations that apparently reveal a plot against him, some in the ANC believe that Zuma would have long proved his innocence if he had been allowed to make representations in the first place.

“It is possible that this case may never have proceeded if the NPA had opened the avenue for representations,” writes executive committee member Zweli Mkhize in ANC Today, the party’s mouthpiece.

“It may have become apparent much earlier that no crime had been committed.”

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