Damaging though it may appear to onlookers, this week’s evidence in the Schabir Shaik trial does not seem to have shaken Deputy President Jacob Zuma’s supporters in the African National Congress-led alliance.
Some still insist the trial is a smear campaign to discredit Zuma and thwart his bid for the presidency, while others maintain a wait-and-see attitude. However, political analysts believe the deputy president has been hurt by Shaik’s testimony.
The stock answer from the ANC and from the South African Communist Party is that comrades are innocent until proven guilty. Many go further to argue that even if Shaik is guilty, the same is not necessarily true of Zuma.
“Zuma is not on trial. Shaik is on trial and he remains innocent until proven guilty by a court of law,” said Mazibuko Jara, SACP spokesperson.
Zizi Kodwa, ANC Youth League spokesperson, said there was no political reason to warrant a change in the league’s position on Zuma’s competency to serve as president.
Kodwa also emphasised that Zuma was not on trial. “Thus there is no established relation between himself and the case which we can comment on,” Kodwa said.
Asked whether Zuma should testify, he said this should happen only if charges were laid against the deputy president “or the courts call him”. “He cannot just go and volunteer; courts do not work like that.”
Kodwa insisted the congress movement was more united than ever. These allegations have no capacity to divide our movement, particularly as they have nothing to do with the ANC.”
But Tom Lodge, head of the political science department at Wits University, remarked that it was “disingenuous” to pretend that the trial had nothing to do with the succession issue. “The trial has kicked up serious questions about ZumaÅ¡s judgment and the ethics he will use in office,” Lodge said.
He added that there was a body of opinion in and outside of the ANC that Zuma should not take over as president “because he doesnÅ¡t represent the quintessential urban politician”.
“I don’t believe this is entirely true. He may not be as sophisticated as Mbeki, but he has other skills which we saw in his negotiations during the violence in KwaZulu-Natal and Burundi and his engagement with the Treatment Action Campaign around HIV and Aids. The point is that countries are not run by individuals, they are run by institutions.”
Adam Habib, director of governance and democracy at the Human Sciences Research Council, argued that Zuma “would do himself a helluva lot of good” if he called a press conference and addressed each of the allegations against him.
“He and his advisers may be calculating that it is wiser to resolve the case within the framework of the law and then within the ANC itself. But my view is that this thing is completely in the public domain now, and cannot just be resolved in the party, ” he said.