Many South Africans
met the news that Jacob Zuma is scheduled to stand next week on 15 October,
with disbelief.
There have after
all been years of delays in bringing the case to court - the disgraced former
president faces charges of fraud, corruption, money laundering and racketeering
relating to payments from French arms company Thales made to him through his former
financial adviser Schabir Shaik, who was convicted in 2005.
On Friday, a full
bench of the KwaZulu-Natal High Court found that Zuma and the National
Prosecuting Authority (NPA) were equally complicit in causing the delay.
The court dismissed
the application for a permanent stay in prosecution by the former president and
co-accused Thales.
CapeTalk's Abongile
Nzelenzele Dube gets the input of Xolani Dube, political analyst with the
Xubera Institute of Research and Development.
Zuma to stand trial on corruption charges relating to $2.5bn arms deal
Dube describes Zuma
as the "godfather" of local politics, produced and until recently,
protected by the ANC.
There is always one
godfather that African politics produces and in our country, we have produced
JZ and fortunately or unfortunately, we have produced a very sophisticated
godfather in our politics.
— Xolani Dube,
Political analyst - Xubera Institute for Research and Development
The question on
everyone's lips - will Zuma appeal? And does he have the funds to do so?
Dube has a scathing response:
In South Africa we
have lots of poor people but we are supposed to always go to court and finance
their (politicians') cases.
If he (Zuma) is
telling us that he's got no money it's clearly an indication that South African
politicians, they are taking us for a ride to say we have to finance even their
ways of fighting against the allegations of their ill-deeds, against us!
Dube goes on to say
that, in fact, this trial is not about Jacob Zuma the individual, but about the
organisation of the ANC which allowed him to become president and stay in
power.
Bear in mind the
people who are protecting this individual, the people who made this individual
so powerful is the organisation that is in power.
— Xolani Dube,
Political analyst - Xubera Institute for Research and Development
If Jacob Zuma is
going to trial, or to jail, here it is about the image, the morality, the
ethics of the ANC. Because Zuma, he's the representative of the whole.
According to Dube,
South Africans need to have a conversation about their relationship with the
ruling party. That can only be effective however, if there is a discussion
first about the country's electoral system.
If we have that
discourse it will also mean a discourse that says, look the electoral system is
very disempowering because South Africans have been waiting for justice for the
past 15 years, or ten years and we are not even sure that Jacob Zuma, come
Tuesday, is not going to appeal because he's a man of Stalingrad approach.
If we can have that
conversation, that's also how we can protect these institutions that need to
mete out justice against those who do evil things in our society.
We must not be
excited because that would show that we are vulnerable in that we have to say,
this organisation can protect someone who's rogue and even make that individual
a president which means that they can also bring us someone else who is rogue
and after ten years they can say that person was not fit.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment