Events in the past few weeks have confirmed that Jacob Zuma will do everything in his power to avoid justice. We are witnessing a concerted and sustained campaign being waged by his allies, his lawyers and also, possibly, a sympathetic judge to ensure that Zuma accedes to the Presidency and stays there. Zuma's guilt or innocence is secondary to this imperative.
ANC Youth League president Julius Malema has led the charge declaring that he was ready to "take up arms and kill for Zuma" if the charges against Zuma are not dropped. Cosatu secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi has echoed these sentiments saying that-"we are prepared to shoot and kill". Not to be outdone, Buti Manamela of the Young Communist League stated that if Zuma did not become President, "there will be hell to pay".
These are not isolated threats. They are indicative of a multi-pronged campaign to have Zuma's pending corruption trial scrapped and for him to become head of state. Indeed, Zuma and his allies are mounting what Communist Party secretary-general Blade Nzimande calls "a massive mobilisation effort" to have the corruption case against him called off. The ANC Youth League are apparently mobilising "legal expert" volunteers in a bid to have the case struck off the roll.
The fact that Zuma has allowed unconstitutional war talk from his close allies to pass unchallenged suggests that he tacitly endorse these sentiments, and even encourages them. If Zuma can mobilise enough popular sentiment behind him, it will smooth the way for him to take unprecedented steps to become and remain President should he be convicted while in office, whatever transpires in the corruption case.
For now, his main mission is to ensure that the corruption charges do not prevent him from becoming President. This includes, according to the Constitutional Court , dispatching Judge John Hlophe to sway judges in Zuma's favour. As Judge Hlophe reportedly said to Judge Bess Nkabinde, he has "a mandate".
The response from the Zuma camp to the Hlophe debacle is telling. Instead of defending the Constitutional Court , or even remaining neutral, it has chosen to attack the full bench of the most senior judges in the land and, by implication, to defend Hlophe.
In Zuma's KwaZulu-Natal stronghold, the ANC has condemned the Constitutional Court for "publicly parading" its complaint against Hlophe. Similarly, Zuma's counsel, Michael Hulley, has written to the Constitutional Court , querying its handling of the Hlophe issue, suggesting that it (rather than Hlophe's alleged actions) has eroded public confidence in the Court!
For all his protestations three years ago that he wants his day in court, Zuma has used every legal manoeuvre to delay his day of reckoning. Since 2004, Zuma's lawyers have been busy filing petitions in the Durban and Johannesburg High Courts, the Supreme Court of Appeal, and now the Constitutional Court -with this aim in mind.
Zuma has tried to invalidate evidence seized in searches of his property, he has sought to withhold a "damning" affidavit bearing his name and he has worked hard to disallow a batch of documentary evidence presently in Mauritius . Together, these reportedly constitute a damning paper trail that points to strong evidence of corruption.
At the moment, Zuma is trying to have the NPA's decision to prosecute him declared unlawful-a tactic which means he will not stand trial on 4 August as originally intended by the court.
The attacks on the courts, the alleged attempts to sway judges and the delaying tactics all point to a deliberate strategy to influence the outcome of the court case. It is fortunate that our judiciary remains largely impervious to these attempts to manipulate it. I remain confident that Zuma will have his day in court and that justice will be served, that is, unless Zuma becomes President before he goes to trial and abuses the powers of that office.
We therefore need to ask what will happen if Zuma is found guilty if, as is likely, he is the President of South Africa when the judgment is handed down? There are at least three potential ‘political solutions' available to Zuma should he be convicted.
The first is to use the ANC's parliamentary majority to pass legislation and/or change the Constitution to grant a sitting President immunity from prosecution. This is the case in countries such as China , Chile and Sri Lanka ; although the prospect of the majority party cynically changing the law to protect its President will be unprecedented.
The second possibility is that Zuma may use his presidential powers to give himself a pardon. According to a senior source in the ANC, there are already whispers about the prospect of a presidential pardon for Zuma.[1] There is no clear indication as to whether this would be constitutional, but this probably matters little to a man who has consistently said that the ANC is more important than the Constitution.
The third option is for Zuma to use his presidential powers to appoint a new head of the NPA willing to drop the charges against him. He will, no doubt, have no problem finding a loyal cadre willing to be deployed for this purpose.
There is only one solution to prevent any of these scenarios playing themselves out: Jacob Zuma cannot be the ANC's presidential candidate until the issue of his guilt or innocence has been resolved in a court of law.
These scenarios are frightening, but all too real. If they came to pass, our hard-won efforts to secure constitutional democracy will have come to naught. In order to protect one man, the ANC will have discarded the principles it struggled for.
[1] "Will Zuma dodge Trial?", Mail and Guardian, 15 May 2008
This article by Helen Zille first appeared in SA Today, a weekly letter from the leader of the Democratic Alliance, June 27 2008
