SA+dare+not+rely+on+judge+to+halt+Zuma,+Tim+du+Plessis,+B+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, 15 September 2006
=SA dare not rely on a judge to halt Zuma’s charge=


 * Tim du Plessis**

SOMETHING is terribly wrong in a country when a lot of people believe one court judgment means make or break for the future.

This is exactly what is happening in the corruption trial of Jacob Zuma. You know the thinking: if Zuma is found not guilty, there is nothing to prevent him becoming president. And with “Bob Lite” secure in the presidential offices in Tuynhuys, SA will be on the highway to Harare.

It is not only whites who are scared. A black colleague says that if Zuma becomes president, he will emigrate to Australia. Yes, it is as bad as that.

Like a mouse fascinated with a snake, the whole country is focused on Judge Herbert Msimang’s courtroom in Pietermaritzburg. Prayers are being whispered. Please, judge, just find him guilty. This man cannot become the president of SA.

What a state of affairs! The future of a great nation is in the hands of a single judge. Of course Zuma should be stopped, but this must happen in the political arena. Not in a courtroom.

This is one of those wild ideas for which only journalists have licence. But I hope the judge throws the case out when the court reconvenes. And before we have to listen to the moans and groans about due process that apparently will not have taken place, remember SA’s streets are full of murderers and rapists who walk around freely because the state is too useless to catch and prosecute them.

In any event, if the case against Zuma fails, it will be mainly the fault of Bulelani Ngcuka, for it was Ngcuka who decided Zuma would not be charged along with Schabir Shaik.

But this is what you get when you give a politician from the ruling party a post that requires absolute neutrality.

Previously, it was probably thought that the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) interests would not be served if Zuma was charged with Shaik. Ironically enough, that wrong decision of three years ago has left the ANC a nightmare of note today.

The state did not come out smelling of roses after the first few days of the Zuma trial. And it won’t get any better. The point is, it is very risky to assume Zuma’s attempt to become president will be derailed in court.

No. Those — and there are many — who are so scared Zuma will become president, must get up off their backsides, roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. Literally, because politics is a dirty business.

Zuma did not raise in his defence, that the court case was a political conspiracy against him, but says so to his supporters. And they believe him. Boy, oh boy, do they believe him.

Therefore, it will be better when the court case is over and done with, and Zuma is forced to fight on grounds of merit, not on grounds of conspiracy theories. Or because he knows people are tired of President Thabo Mbeki.

Because eventually the country and the world want to know whether there is something left of the character and integrity of the ANC, SA’s oldest freedom movement, which regularly reminds us that the movement survived for so long because it always did the right thing at critical moments.

If the ANC really is such a heroic movement, it must do the right thing and stop Zuma. The ANC must realise it is unthinkable that this man can govern SA.

He does not have the intellect, the vision or the spiritual power to handle one of the most difficult governing posts in the world.

Zuma is, without doubt, a well-loved figure within the ANC. This makes stopping him and his ambition more difficult for the party.

The early indications are not reassuring. A loud silence greeted Archbishop Desmond Tutu a couple of weeks ago when he, in simple but strong church language, pleaded with Zuma to let go of his ambition.

Sorry, there was a reaction. Those political tsotsis that trade as pro-ANC youth organisations swore at Tutu. A hapless Mbeki scolded them in his internet column, because they were disrespectful towards an older man. But he did not say: listen to the words of a Man of God.

Why is it so difficult for those in the ANC, who are truly interested in the country and its wellbeing, to stand up?

Or is all their energy spent on repositioning, to make sure they will still have jobs when Mbeki is not the boss any more?

If the consequences were not so scary, one could laugh about it.

Zuma is locked in a courtroom battle in Pietermaritzburg. But his campaign to become ANC president is running countrywide and is winning ground.

The ANC’s hands are not tied, but it is sitting on them, and is paralysed. Only its eyes are moving now and again. If I were Mbeki, I would be severely depressed.


 * Du Plessis is editor of Rapport.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A272113**

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