Former deputy president Jacob Zuma should not pursue the race to become president of the African National Congress (ANC), Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said on Wednesday.
Delivering the Harold Wolpe Memorial lecture in Cape Town, Tutu said: ”I pray that someone will be able to counsel him that the most dignified, most selfless thing, the best thing he could do for a land he loves deeply is to declare his decision not to take further part in the succession race of his party.”
He said although he liked Zuma, he could not condone his behaviour — admitting to having had sex with a woman young enough to be his daughter, and taking a shower to prevent HIV/Aids infection.
Tutu also said Zuma did nothing to chastise his supporters who demonstrated outside the Johannesburg High Court every day of his rape trial. The demonstrators vilified the women who accused Zuma of rape and threatened her life.
”I for one would not be able to hold my head high if a person with such supporters were to become my president, someone who did not think it necessary to apologise for engaging in casual sex without taking proper precautions in a country that is being devastated by this horrendous HIV/Aids pandemic.
”What sort of example would he be setting?”
Zuma said earlier this week that he had been ”tried and convicted” together with convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik even though he had never appeared in the dock.
Zuma on Tuesday filed papers in the Pietermaritzburg High Court in response to the state’s replying affidavits that seek a postponement of his corruption trial as well as answer his application for a permanent stay of prosecution.
He said the ”elements” of the charges were different to the charges which Shaik was found guilty of in July 2005 by Judge Hilary Squires.
”Nevertheless, in the public eye, I was tried and convicted with Shaik. My sentence was publicly pronounced by the president in the joint sitting of the houses of Parliament on 14 June 2005.”
Zuma said the state had failed to address ”crucial issues” in his application for a permanent stay of prosecution and asked the court to rule large parts of the state’s affidavits and many of the annexures inadmissible because they ”are highly prejudicial” to him.
He said the state had failed to explain the delay in prosecuting him and the impact it had on him and his family.
He accused the state of a ”cynical abuse of power”.
Author of encrypted fax may testify
Meanwhile, lawyers for the South African subsidiaries of French arms company Thales have not ruled out calling the man accused of attempting to bribe Zuma as a witness.
”It is too early to tell who will be called as a witness,” Thint’s attorney Ajay Sooklal said when asked on Wednesday if Alain Thethard, the former Thint (then known as Thomson-CSF) executive, would be called to give evidence in the corruption trial.
However, in affidavits filed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, Thint is seeking a permanent stay of prosecution.
Thint, represented by managing director Pierre Moynot, is Zuma’s co-accused.
Sooklal said his client believed that its right to a fair trial had been breached because the state had failed to honour a 2004 agreement to withdraw charges in exchange for an affidavit from Thetard confirming that he was the author of an ”encrypted fax”.
The encrypted fax recording a R500 000 a year bribe to Zuma was accepted as evidence by Durban High Court judge Hilary Squires in the trial of Zuma’s friend and former financial adviser Schabir Shaik.
The Star newspaper earlier on Wednesday reported that Moynot claimed in papers filed in response to the state’s affidavits that it was the National Prosecuting Authority that had approached Thales to reach the deal over Thetard’s affidavit.
Thetard is no longer in South Africa.
The fax was a vital piece of evidence in the conviction of Shaik, who was described by Squires as having a ”generally corrupt relationship” with Zuma. He was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. His appeal is expected to be heard in late September.
In another revelation, The Star also reported that Moynot claimed in the affidavit that former justice minister Penuel Meduna ”took a job for the French company [Thales]” in September last year. – Sapa