The African National Congress Youth League has become increasingly isolated in its defiant support for Jacob Zuma, after key party structures dumped him in the aftermath of his rape charge this week.
The league said the rape charge alone, without a conviction, was insufficient to warrant a change in its stance. At the same time, ANC structures in the former Zuma bastions of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal were taking the view that a future South African president could not have a rape charge in his background, whatever the trial outcome.
Zuma will spend most of next year in court. From February he will be at the Johannesburg High Court defending charges that he raped a woman at his Forest Town, Johannesburg, home on November 4, and in July at the Durban High Court to contest corruption charges.
Zuma suffered a blow when his staunchest supporters, Cosatu and the South African Communist Party, publicly stated that they had never backed him as a future ANC president, saying that only the ANC could decide the issue. They have, for the first time, also questioned the tag of ”Zuma supporters”, saying it pigeon-holes them.
Last week, a meeting to launch the Gauteng chapter of the Friends of JZ Trust was a damp squib, with fewer than 10 non-journalists arriving for the event.
Party leaders in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal — traditional Zuma support bases — this week conceded that the rape charges against Zuma had ”paralysed” them, adding that his political ”days are numbered” even if he is found innocent.
”Even if [the rape complainant] has sinister intentions, JZ should have foreseen that he could be falling into a trap,” said a provincial leader.
”The ANC will have to take a principled stance. The party will need to look at the traditions of the ANC and take a position irrespective of the stakes and the status of the individual involved.”
But the youth league continued to stage a lonely, defiant stand. League spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said: ”The issues in the Johannesburg High Court do not constitute sufficient basis for us to review our decision that he becomes the next president. He has already done the right thing by following his conscience and stepping down from his responsibilities.
”We feel it’s unfair to write people off before they go to court. No one said Judge Siraj Desai must step down when he was accused of rape.
He was vindicated in the end.
”Let Zuma go to court, and if he can win that case, we are sure that the corruption case against him is weak. If he wins both cases, he will be really strong, a real tsunami.
”On the succession we are clear. If he wins the cases he must be the next ANC president and logically the president of the country.”
Youth league president Fikile Mbalula said earlier this year that if Mbeki bid for the ANC presidency in 2007, he might create an unnecessary tension between national and party leadership. Mbeki has insisted he will not seek a third term as South Africa’s president. Mbalula urged Mbeki to follow Nelson Mandela’s example and bow out ÂÂgraciously.
Zuma has not gone down quietly. In what may be his last speech as an ANC leader, at the Cosatu anniversary rally in Durban last week, he called for the ANC to be saved from those seeking to destroy it. ”We face a real danger of losing what made us the ANC — our values, the spirit of comradeship the sense of selflessness that led so many people to sacrifice their lives for our freedom and democracy.
”We are under threat from a fast modernising society based on self-advancement, enrichment, ambition and the quest for power. We should never sacrifice the essence of the ANC at any cost. All of these things conflict with the values that defined the movement on which the struggle for liberation was fought and won,” said Zuma.
Zuma’s defence: Woman’s credibility ‘will be targeted’
Although Jacob Zuma’s lawyers would not comment on the merits of the rape case against him this week, the outlines of his defence were sketched by various sources close to the Zuma camp.
As in any rape trial, the obvious but painful line of attack is against the alleged victim’s credibility. Indications are that Zuma’s team will argue that:
Also likely to be probed are the circumstances under which the alleged victim decided to lay charges. It appears that one of the first people she confided in after the alleged incident was Kimmi Msibi, an assistant to both intelligence spokesperson Lorna Daniels and Minister Ronnie Kasrils.
Kasrils has been listed in the indictment as a state witness, suggesting that he became involved before a complaint was laid on November 4 — two days after the alleged incident.
Statements the alleged victim made to the Sunday Independent, initially denying the allegations, are also likely to be used as ammunition against her.
The first outline of the rape case against Zuma emerged from a brief indictment served on him at his behind-closed-doors appearance in court this week.
He is charged with having sexual intercourse with the complainant without her consent when she was sleeping over at his Forest Town residence in Johannesburg.
The summary of substantial facts states that the 31-year-old complainant is a family friend and, on his invitation, went to visit him on the afternoon of November 2.
During the evening he allegedly invited her to stay over and indicated a room where she could sleep. Later, while she was asleep, he allegedly arrived and offered her a massage, which she declined. He then allegedly removed her duvet and had sex with her against her will.
However, making the charge stick will not be an easy matter for the prosecution.
The onus, if Zuma insists the sex was consensual, is on the state to prove that the complainant did not agree to sex.
The state prosecutor who postponed Zuma’s rape trial this week, Carina Coetzee, said that in rape trials generally, ”it’s far more difficult [to counter a consent defence] than denial of intercourse”.
Rape is defined in common law as intentional unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent.
The prosecution must prove the essential elements of the crime beyond reasonable doubt to secure a rape conviction. In rape, the elements are that it is unlawful, consists of vaginal penetration by a penis, occurs with a woman and without her real consent. Additionally, the man must know or foresee the possibility that she did not consent, for example, because she was drunk. Consent can be rendered ineffective if a woman was intimidated, according to a 1957 precedent.
In crimes such as robbery, the victim’s consent is not at issue, but in rape trials the state must prove that it was absent. This has tended to shift the spotlight to the rape survivor’s behaviour and away from the assailant.
Lawyers specialising in sexual offence law say consent is the most commonly used defence in rape cases.
”Consent is a general defence that removes the unlawful [element of the sexual intercourse],” explained Sibongile Ndashe, an attorney at the Women’s Legal Centre. ”It becomes his word against hers.”
She added that the existence of a prior relationship between the complainant and defendant should have no bearing on whether rape took place, but cautioned that it would be unwise to speculate about Zuma’s trial without knowledge of the details that will emerge in court.
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It often comes down to who the court finds more credible, unless there are serious injuries,” said Liesel Gerntholtz, the director of Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, which deals with gender violence.
Because there are rarely witnesses to rape, courts also rely on forensic evidence such as fluids found on the survivor or at the crime scene, or physical injuries found by a doctor during a medical examination.
Gerntholtz said courts might also use testimony about events following the alleged rape, such as conversations with family or counsellors. Courts could also consider the delay between the alleged incident and the time of reporting, as well as the complainant’s physical and emotional state, said Coetzee.
A state prosecutor, who asked not to be named, said the 30-year age gap between Zuma and the complainant would not be a material factor.
While consent defences are not insurmountable, Lisa Vetten of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, said: ”The 8% conviction rate [of rapists] gives you a sense that the odds are stacked against the ÂÂvictim.” — Sam Sole and Tumi Makgetla