Only+Zuma+denialists+say+it+was+not+a+victory,+Vuyo+Mvoko,+B+Day

Business Day, 22 September 2006
=Only those with ‘Zuma denial’ could say this was not a victory=


 * Vuyo Mvoko**

IT IS too early for Jacob Zuma and his supporters to celebrate a “technicality”, say those familiar with the law.

The elite — including business and political leaders who either frown on, or are vehemently opposed to, the prospect of a Zuma presidency — are pinning their hopes on the fact that the case has just been struck off the roll, and not dismissed once and for all.

The problem with us South Africans is that a dozen years on, we are still refusing to learn very simple lessons that this democracy is teaching us. Worst of all, we find it so easy to dismiss truth and reality, simply because it is not quite what we would like to hear or see.

True, Zuma’s “victory” on Wednesday was merely a confirmation of what Bulelani Ngcuka said on that fateful Saturday, August 23 2003. The latter-day businessman was still the head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) when he called a press conference and said although there was “prima facie” evidence of corruption, he would not charge Zuma because he did not think the case was “winnable”. Ngcuka took this position in spite of his own underlings’ strong recommendation that the suspect be charged, nevertheless.

And for more than three years now our country, which deserves much better, has been plunged into chaos of comic proportions, which we will no doubt witness for some time to come.

Yes, the pundits are correct. Zuma is not out of the woods until the NPA comes with its new evidence — something the authority insists it will be able to do by mid-October. But do Zuma and his supporters really have nothing to celebrate, notwithstanding that ominous possibility?

They have lots and lots to celebrate. Zuma looks set to assume the leadership of the most powerful organisation in SA, the African National Congress (ANC), and eventually, the west wing of the Union Buildings. And it is an indictment on them that there are still those who refuse to hear that Zuma’s ascendancy to the highest political position in this country is a possibility. More so considering that most of them regard themselves, and are regarded, as the cream of SA’s political, business, and academic elite.

Of course, one would not be so naive as to ignore the overall impact that hitherto undeclared Zuma opponents in the ANC’s presidential race may have, including the possibility of victors by default. But without new and incriminating evidence from the NPA, they will have an uphill battle.

It is that recognition that is resulting in many ANC leaders and cadres now saying hail to the new chief — Zuma — albeit in all manner of disguises. There is little other explanation for the changes in the ways the ANC parliamentary lot have suddenly come to behave — including their out-of-hand rejection of some proposals, such as that of the parliamentary majority party’s chief whip, Mbulelo Goniwe, who recently asked his comrades to throw their weight behind party president Thabo Mbeki.

Obviously buoyed by Wednesday’s decision, the pro-Zuma lobby is set to up the ante. Already the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is demanding Zuma’s reinstatement as deputy president of the country — something they know is unlikely, as it is Mbeki’s prerogative to appoint anyone to his cabinet. But then Cosatu’s aim is not to get Mbeki to do something everyone knows he won’t be keen to do: the idea is to pit Mbeki against as many ANC cadres and structures as possible. In other words, short of a coup, they want to force a crisis in which the ANC president will be at odds with his own party.

And even if the NPA was to charge Zuma, his supporters are determined to make sure that Mbeki, too, is immediately investigated.

Was it any wonder then that at Gallagher Estate in Midrand — where Cosatu, staunch Zuma allies, were holding their annual congress this week — the ANC deputy president’s cabinet-in-waiting was already flaunting it? As early as Monday, the labour minister-in-waiting, current Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, said he was “smelling victory” and he invited all and sundry to a “celebration” party that was to be held at the same venue after the Wednesday Pietermaritzburg High Court decision. The party happened.

Unless the denialists are prepared to do a lot more about what they don’t like — including coming up with foot soldiers to match Zuma’s and mounting a seriously determined campaign — they may as well reconcile themselves to the fact that Zuma and his crowd are far closer to the “pound seats” Schabir Shaik’s father-in-law was said to have identified.

But anyone is free to continue frowning — just as many people did three years ago when some of us said there was no end in sight for the fight that had just started, and which continues to this day. We said the NPA head could have done better. Clever people said the “fight against corruption” had nothing to do with “the battle for soul of the ANC”, which is what some of us stupid journalists, “so-called analysts” and other “dunderheads”, were insisting was the case.


 * Mvoko is an independent media and political consultant.


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A276287**

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