The ANC, blithely ignoring all the warnings before its Polokwane conference, has got itself in a pretty pickle over Jacob Zuma. That much was obvious from its national executive committee meeting this week, which spent hours debating what to do about the detailed graft, money-laundering and racketeering charges now laid against the ANC president.
The response has been predictable — to pledge support for Zuma in his battle with the National Prosecuting Authority, accused of allowing itself to be used by political conspirators. As George Bizos and Arthur Chaskalson pointed out this week, that amounts to an attack on the judge who will try the case, set down for August. After all, it is not the NPA that will determine Zuma’s guilt or innocence, it is South Africa’s constitutionally independent judiciary. If the NPA has fabricated the case, the court should soon expose this. It should be remembered that Zuma has been successful in court on previous occasions.
That mealy-mouthed master of evasion, Cosatu “information officer” Patrick Craven, vehemently insisted that Cosatu supports the principle of judicial independence and that the issue is the political manipulation of the prosecutions authority. Will he and Zwelinzima Vavi give an undertaking that the unions will not seek to derail the judicial process around Zuma? This is the problem facing Zuma’s supporters: how do they “defend” him without undermining the Constitution they claim to hold dear?
Given President Thabo Mbeki’s interference in the case against police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, perceptions of selective justice are understandable. They are reinforced by growing questions about Mbeki’s own contacts with arms-deal bidders and middlemen. But the unpunished guilt of others does not mean that Zuma is innocent. The correct course is surely to press for the NPA to investigate all those who have broken the law.
Equally disingenuous is the ANC’s decision to conduct its own investigation into the arms deal as an expression of support for Zuma. The bulk of the charges against him have nothing to do with the arms procurement — they revolve principally around his relationship with convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik. But, in any case, how will a sub-committee that lacks the NPA’s powers of search, seizure and subpoena and which has no terms of reference, deadline or clarity about what to do with the information it gathers, make a difference? How credible will its findings be? Will it use the findings to interfere in the judicial process? The proposal seems little more than empty posturing.
Two very dangerous, deeply anti-democratic attitudes underlie the ANC’s determination to ensure that Zuma rises to the presidency of the country, whatever the cost. The first, probably rooted in the apartheid years, is the insistence on viewing leaders accused or convicted of crimes as victims. Also evident in Tony Yengeni’s case, this denies the equality of all South Africans under the law.
The second is the belief that the ANC, as the elected representative of the people, has the right to interfere in and overturn the decisions of constitutionally protected institutions of state, specifically the NPA. That, ironically, is what the new ANC leadership accuses Mbeki of doing.
Transformation template
By appointing Peter de Villiers as the new Springbok coach, the South African Rugby Union might finally have given a clear indication of what it understands by transformation and affirmative action in rugby. Saru also might have provided a template for a broader South African society grappling with these baffling new creatures of the post-apartheid dispensation.
De Villiers is black and has enjoyed success in coaching youth teams. He does not have experience in coaching Super rugby. But this, it should be remembered, also applied to his predecessor, Jake White — and no one could seriously challenge his appointment as not being based on merit.
Inevitably, De Villiers will be tarred with the brush of “affirmative action”, as if that is necessarily a bad thing. But Saru appears to have approached both appointments in the same way — by identifying potential, without being blind to the shortcomings the candidates might have.
This is what advocates of transformation should be pressing for: not racial tokenism, but a genuine attempt to find black candidates in every field of endeavour who either have what it takes to do the job, or can reasonably be expected to grow into it.
It is heartening to players and fans alike that De Villiers has given the assurance that he will not be working with black or white players, but with rugby players. Again this is a message the corporate and public sectors can take on board — people want to be treated according to their merits, not their skin colour.
De Villiers’s success should thus be measured not only by how many games he wins, but also on how he helps to balance white fears and black expectations — neither of which can be wished away.
He will be judged by his progress in convincing players and public that South Africa’s best, irrespective of colour, all have the same chance of donning the green and gold. If he succeeds, the Boks might become the genuinely national side they have sought to be for so long.