EDITED EXTRACT FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A PUBLIC MEETING BY HELEN ZILLE
LEADER OF THE DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE
ADDRESS DELIVERED BY HELEN ZILLE AT THE KEMPTON PARK CITY HALL
MONDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2008

Motlanthe’s presidential ambitions may yet thwart a ‘political solution’ for Zuma

Embargoed against delivery: 19:00, Monday 22 September 2008

Ten days ago Judge Chris Nicholson ruled that the National Prosecuting Authority’s prosecution of Jacob Zuma was invalid because the NPA had failed to give him the opportunity to make representations before it recharged the ANC President. Zuma’s supporters enthusiastically welcomed the judgment, as they interpreted it to mean that their man was off the hook.

Buoyed by the verdict’s inference that President Thabo Mbeki had meddled with the NPA to secure Zuma’s prosecution, the President of the ANC Youth League, Julius Malema called on the ANC to “recall” the President. By contrast, Jacob Zuma said that there was no point in “beating a dead snake.”

Then, last Wednesday, the NPA announced that it would appeal the judgment, as it is duty-bound to do, given the prima facie evidence that Zuma had accepted 783 bribes totaling R4.2 million over ten years.

The ANC leadership soon changed its tune and backtracked on its new-found respect for the due process of law. ANC spokesperson Jesse Duarte called the NPA’s decision “cynical and ill-considered”. An official ANC statement lamented: “By not accepting the court’s ruling, the NPA has lost a valuable opportunity to bring the relentless pursuit of Jacob Zuma to an end.”

Some members of the ruling party assumed that Mbeki had personally influenced the NPA to appeal the judgment. This was to prove the end of the road for him.

There is no doubt that the NPA’s decision to appeal – and the ruling party’s realisation that Zuma was not off the hook – led to the ANC NEC’s decision to follow Malema’s lead and “recall” the President.

This was the revenge that the hardliners in the Zuma camp had been seeking since Polokwane. But the decision to recall Mbeki was also motivated by the ANC’s stated aim of finding a political solution to Zuma’s legal problems. Political solutions mooted range from amending the Constitution to make a sitting President immune from prosecution to appointing a Head of the National Prosecuting Authority willing to drop the charges against Zuma.

As ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe said in the City Press yesterday: “The biggest worry for us is the question of the reversal of the possible closure of that chapter…[The Zuma] case, in our view, is not in the public or national interest. If the case is pursued, it will continue to be a point of division in the ANC. That’s the main issue.”

The fundamental error that the ANC makes is that it fails to distinguish between Zuma’s interest and the national interest. Circumventing the legal process to get Zuma off the hook is in the ANC’s interest, but not the country’s. Conversely, the speedy and successful resolution of Zuma’s case may prove fatal to Zuma’s presidential ambitions, but it is necessary if we are to close the chapter on this sorry affair.

Mantashe’s comments and Zuma’s about-turn on getting rid of Mbeki raise the very real possibility that the hardliners in the ANC will use the presidential levers of power to enable Zuma to avoid justice.
But some hope lies in the ANC NEC’s decision to nominate Minister in the Presidency Kgalema Motlanthe as President Mbeki’s successor.

Motlanthe is perhaps the most level-headed and reasonable of all the politicians in the Zuma camp. Unlike Zuma, he had the courage to rebuke the ANC Youth League for its menacing statements that it would “shoot to kill” for the ANC President.

The ANCYL responded by accusing Motlanthe of having a political agenda. In response to Motlanthe’s comments, a Youth League spokesman said: “Going around affirming the independence of the criminal justice system on the case of the ANC President is worrisome. A political case can only require a political solution.”

Whereas Zuma has been equivocal on the supremacy of the Constitution, Motlanthe has committed himself unequivocally to it, and to the independence of the judiciary. If any member of the new ANC leadership can govern in the best interests of South Africa, rather than in the narrow interests of a cabal within the ANC, it is him.

There is another good reason to believe that Motlanthe may refuse to play ball with the hardliners and reject a political solution to Zuma’s legal problems: It is rumoured that Minister Motlanthe harbours long-term presidential ambitions himself. He is unlikely to be satisfied with a stopgap spell as the caretaker President.

It may just happen that Motlanthe refuses to heed the call of the hardliners for a political solution to Zuma’s legal problems. He may turn out to support those constitutionalists within the ANC who believe that