/ 12 May 1995

Don’t do it Madiba

President Nelson Mandela is considering the early release of former Cabinet minister Pietie du Plessis, who has served two years of a nine-year sentence for 17 counts of fraud. It would be a mistake for him to grant it.

Set aside the irony of anyone asking Mandela, who served his sentence in good and bad health until he was 71, to release a prisoner because he is 60 and ill. It is an unsustainable precedent that will come back to haunt the president. He will be less able to mete out harsh punishment for corruption in his own government if he is lenient towards corrupt officials of the previous regime.

This is a chance to signal that the new government has no tolerance for corruption, whenever committed, and that elected officials who abuse positions of responsibility will not be entitled to special treatment or leniency of any kind.