Publication	Business Day
Date	2010-03-03
Web Link	www.bday.co.za

Pomp and Parody:
President Jacob Zuma arrives at London’s Heathrow airport yesterday. Viscount Brookeborough, lord in waiting to the Queen, was on hand to welcome him
Picture: Jacoline Prinsloo

President Jacob Zuma ’s recent controversies have followed him to the UK with scene-setters on his state visit revisiting his polygamy and his courtroom travails.

“His country’s first openly polygamous president, Mr Zuma will be received with the usual pomp by the Queen and Prime Minister Gordon Brown during a three-day visit likely to be dominated by interest in his personal life and the continuing crisis in Zimbabwe,” wrote the Independent’s online edition.

Describing him as “exuberant” with a “colourful CV”, and “shrewd”, the Guardian online leapt straight into his battle with rape and corruption charges *1, his rejection of calls for nationalisation, and moved swiftly on to which wife he had chosen to accompany him ­ Thobeka Madiba ­ for the visit.

The Independent wrote the “distinctly monogamous” Queen Elizabeth was unlikely to be fazed by the visit, “given the range of distinctly ropey state visitors she has greeted during her 58 years on the throne ”.

The right-wing Daily Mail headlined its article: “Jacob Zuma is a sex-obsessed bigot with four wives and 35 children *3. So why is Britain fawning *2 over this vile buffoon?”

With a picture of Zuma in traditional attire at his wedding to Madiba, it wrote that he had paid “a sort of tribal deposit on a future bride” to the families of at least two more potential wives. It also claimed to have been told of twins he had had with a Ukrainian woman.

The Mail said it was “becoming ever more evident that SA is being turned into an organised kleptocracy *4”. “With timing that seems suspiciously fortunate given the looming state visit, the government this month announced a deal with British Aerospace to end investigations into whether bribes were paid *5 in several recent contracts.”

Last year, Zuma won a damages claim against the UK Guardian for writing that he was guilty of rape, corruption and bribery.

The Financial Times wrote: “It will no doubt prove tempting … to depict (the visit) as a comic opera *6.”

But “when he came to London just over two years ago, only a few bankers would see him. Now he returns as the most powerful man in sub-Saharan Africa ….

“ However, western investors are starting to fret. They want him to go beyond equivocating and mollifying the feuding power brokers of his rowdy alliance.”

With acknowledgements to Business Day.

---

*1       If the NPA had done its constitutionally mandated job properly, this vile buffoon would be sitting in the pen and not being escorted around by the lord in waiting to the Queen.


*2      Because these vile buffoons bought £1,2 billion of crap fighter jets from British Aerospace.


*3      That's 35 at the current count with another two to pop soon and another 3 to pop out of the Russian/Ukrainian woodwork.


*4      This Standard 2 educated porridge gunner sure is organisising a nation-wide kleptocracy.

It says so in his charge sheet - the crime is called racketeering. It's an organised crime.

That's until other criminals arranged for the charges to be withdrawn.


*5      The evidence is that the bribes were paid.

R1,2 billion Rand worth of bribes to buy £1,2 billion of crap fighter jets from British Aerospace.

It's about 10%.

At least we are lucky: in Saudi Arabia the same vile British Aerospace paid about 45% bribes in a £60 billion deal to buy crap fighter jets from British Aerospace.

That's their businesses :

a.      making crap;

b.      paying overt commissions; and

c.      paying covert commissions.


*6      It's the unfunniest comic opera ever staged at the west end.