SPEECH BY HELEN ZILLE, LEADER OF THE DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE, ALEX LAING HALL, KROONVALE, GRAAFF-REINET, APRIL 8 2009
Yesterday we watched Jacob Zuma smugly declare his innocence. The ANC is putting out the word on the street that Zuma has been vindicated. This is nonsense.
Zuma says that he has not been found guilty in a court of law. Well, he has not been found innocent either. His innocence has never been proved. Only a court of law can do that. If Zuma never has the opportunity to prove his innocence, a cloud of suspicion will forever remain above his head.
If Jacob Zuma was innocent, he would have been disappointed by the National Prosecuting Authority's (NPA) decision to drop the charges. He would have wanted, after building his defence for eight years, to take his case to court and prove his innocence once and for all.
But Zuma has not done that. He has used every trick - including acquiring tapes from the National Intelligence Agency and blackmailing the NPA - to avoid his day in court. He wants to avoid his day in court because a cloud of suspicion is preferable to a jail sentence.
Zuma said yesterday that it is a time for healing and unity. What he doesn't understand is that the NPA's dropping the charges against him on spurious grounds has left a gaping wound in our constitutional democracy. This will only heal when we know - once and for all - whether Jacob Zuma is innocent or guilty.
The NPA's withdrawing of the charges against Zuma is not the end of the matter. The DA is going to fight this with everything we have. Our first step is to prove in court that the NPA's dropping of the charges was irrational and unlawful.
We believe that we can do this because there is no connection whatsoever between the prima facie case against Zuma and the alleged political conspiracy against him. We must remember that Schabir Shaik was found guilty of bribing Zuma in a court of law. Whether or not figures in the NPA conspired about the timing of the charge against Zuma is immaterial.
If you join the dots, it is clear that the real political conspiracy in this whole saga has been plotted by the Zuma camp. The Scorpions were disbanded to protect Zuma from further investigations, Vusi Pikoli was fired because he could not be relied upon to act as a Zuma stooge and Schabir Shaik was given medical parole because he threatened to take Zuma down with him unless strings were pulled to get him out of prison.
The root cause of this sorry mess has been the ANC's cadre deployment policy and the use of these cadres to serve their particular party faction and abuse the institutions of state. This is the root cause of the failed state syndrome, which ends up impoverishing the vast majority of citizens and enriching the select few.
Issued by the Democratic Alliance, April 8 2009
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
