Jacob Zuma – The artful dodger

First published by Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper

While he might believe he is above the law, Jacob Zuma still clearly fears it.

There were a few trapdoors in the original regulations guiding the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture and promulgated by Zuma shortly before he resigned, under duress, as president of South Africa in February 2018. First, the regulations did not make provision for consequences for a witness refusing to answer questions and second, implicated persons were protected from prosecution for any wrongdoing exposed at the commission.

Lipstick on a pig, in other words.

In January that little loophole was closed when a new subregulation was inserted stating that anyone who wilfully hindered, restricted or obstructed the chairperson or any officer would be guilty of an offence.

Then in June the gap was further sealed by another amendment allowing law enforcement agencies to access evidence given at the commission.

With those two emergency exits out of range Zuma, the selling of socks aside, was always going to go for broke.

The man really does believe he is above the law.

Like Trump, like Nixon, Zuma established an imperial presidency in conflict with the duties of presidential office in a constitutional democracy.

The highest court found him to be a constitutional delinquent, so there is no surprise that the former president does not respect the law and is a threat to democratic principle.

Zuma, at present, has been implicated by no less than 34 witnesses who have publicly placed him at the centre of a political project aimed at capturing the institutions of the SA state to divert billions in public funds to a criminal political and business elite.

This under the guise of Radical Economic Transformation.

From the country’s national airline to its power utility, from its railroads to its ports, from its mines to its hospitals to its dairy farms, no corner was left unscavenged as the project rolled out during Zuma’s term as president between 2009 and 2018.

Former president Jacob Zuma at the state capture commission of inquiry during his application that deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo must recuse himself in the inquiry. Photo Felix Dlangamandla/Daily Maverick

Zuma’s considerable borer beetle network began to insert itself within the institutions of democracy; the justice system, law enforcement, the National Prosecuting Authority, the State Security Agency, Intelligence, Revenue and Correctional Services, Home Affairs and the ANC itself. No province was left unaffected, no municipality, no district. Everything would be eaten from the inside out.

When those in the network faced potential exposure, weapons of choice were costly legal processes paid for by a bottomless public purse.

From SARS to SAPS to IPID to the DPCI to the NPA, officials found themselves sidelined, set up, bound by legal red tape, crippling costs, bogus private investigations and reports with tailor-made negative findings.Zuma, like Nixon and Trump, has been ruthless in saving his own skin and discarding friends and enemies in equal measure.

In Zuma’s case this would include wives, one who was falsely accused of poisoning him and another who has been excommunicated from the marital household.

It was former comrade and later Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils who described Zuma as “tricky, sly, cunning, deceitful and manipulative”. This is evidenced by an April 2020 revelation by Zuma, in yet another last-minute bid in the Constitutional Court to stay his corruption prosecution with regard to the arms deal, that he would have been happy to take the stand in 2005 against his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, if he [Zuma] were granted immunity.

No one has wriggled more vigorously over the boiling pot of justice than Jacob Zuma.

The courts are his domain. From challenging rape charges to countless attempts to halt his prosecution for corruption, to attempting to dodge personal responsibility for the upgrades to his private home at Nkandla, he knows the heat, he thrives on the sizzle, as do his supporters. Zuma tried some flames in July 2019 when he first appeared at the commission, wounded and paranoid, accusing agents, spies and enemies of conspiring against him and his supporters. Accusations are always vague and all-encompassing.

This week, on Tuesday, 15 December, the same day his legal team informed the commission that Zuma would not be opposing its Constitutional Court bid, the former president launched his own Pretoria High Court challenge to Deputy Chief Justice Zondo’s refusal to recuse himself as chair of the commission.

Zondo has approached the apex court to compel Zuma to appear before the commission between 18 and 22 January, and 15 and 19 February 2021, to defend himself and answer to serious claims.

Zuma might be counting on dragging back the hands of time with the hope that the commission will come to a shuddering halt in March 2021 when it is expected to complete its work.

The deadline was extended to compensate for the Covid-19 pandemic and the concomitant delays and this might very well happen again.

But a showdown at the Zondo Commission awaits, one way or another.

Whatever the outcome of Zuma’s challenges, the Zondo Commission of Inquiry has allowed millions of South Africans to witness, first-hand, and from the mouths of those who were there, what the Zuma presidency and those who aided and abetted it, did to South Africa.

To say nothing of what it did to tarnish the star of the African National Congress rendering it, for now, more of a criminal organisation masquerading as a political party.

Zuma’s choice of silence over accountability to the commission is evidence that while he might believe he is above the law, he still fears it and that is all that matters, for now. DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for free to Pick 'n Pay Smartshoppers at these Pick 'n Pay stores.