African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma is seeking to persuade a court to dismiss corruption and fraud charges against him — and remove the last boulder on his rocky road to becoming South African president.
Zuma supporters danced to his trademark anti-apartheid song, Bring Me My Machine Gun, at an all-night vigil ahead of yesterday’s court hearing. Thousands more were expected to arrive during the night.
The 66-year-old former guerrilla fighter stands accused, along with a French arms company, of bribery in a multibillion-rand arms deal concluded in 1999.
PHOTO: EPA
But Zuma and his supporters say the case amounts to political persecution and should be dismissed.
If Judge Chris Nicholson agrees, he could drop all charges against Zuma. But if not, Zuma could face trial later this year — although it is doubtful that any process would be complete before next year’s legislative elections, which could complicate his presidential ambitions. In South Africa, the president is chosen by the party that wins the elections.
Zuma’s lawyers are expected to argue in High Court yesterday that the case has dragged on too long and is unlawful and unconstitutional. They maintain that Zuma’s right to a speedy and fair trial have been violated.
Charges were filed against Zuma in 2005 and then thrown out the next year on a technicality. But within days of him being elected ANC president last year, the National Prosecuting Authority said it had new evidence and filed racketeering, corruption, money laundering and fraud charges.
ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe accused the Prosecuting Authority of denying Zuma “fair and equal treatment.”
“This matter is not simply about Jacob Zuma. It is about the principles and practices upon which we intend to build a new society, one that is democratic, just and equitable,” Motlanthe said in an editorial on the ANC’s Web site.
Zuma has become very popular with South Africans, many of whom want change after 10 years under President Thabo Mbeki, and Zuma’s supporters say he has been made a scapegoat in a scandal that reaches the presidency.
The Sunday Times reported on Sunday that Mbeki accepted a 30 million rand (US$4 million) bribe from a German shipbuilding company, and gave part of this to Zuma and the rest to the ANC. Mbeki’s spokesman said there was no basis to the report.
Zuma ousted Mbeki as ANC leader in December and, given the party’s huge majority, is expected to succeed his rival as president following next year’s elections.
Zuma, who was a leader of the exiled ANC military wing during apartheid, grew up in poverty and without formal schooling. He strikes a chord with the young and unemployed, speaking their language rather than spouting Shakespearean sonnets like Mbeki.
The powerful trade union confederation and the ANC Youth League said their members would “kill” for their hero Zuma.
Zuma also has reached out to Afrikaners, who shoulder most blame for racial segregation and now feel the most marginalized, as well as to poor whites. He has tried to reassure big business and foreign investors who fear South Africa will lurch to the left.
Critics accuse Zuma of making empty promises and say he isn’t fit for the top job. In 2006, he was acquitted of raping an HIV-positive family friend half his age. The case cast a shadow over his character and judgment, not helped by the fact that he is an open polygamist who has — according to newspaper reports — fathered more than a dozen children.
President Mbeki fired Zuma as the country’s deputy president in 2005, after Zuma’s financial adviser was sentenced to 15 years in jail for trying to elicit bribes from French company Thint, formerly Thomson CSF.
Zuma allegedly accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from Thint to use his influence and stop investigations into arms deal contracts with the government, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors won an important victory on Thursday when the Constitutional Court upheld a ruling that the 2005 police seizure of incriminating documents from Zuma’s home and office was legal. It also ruled that prosecutors could bring documents from Mauritius about a meeting between a Thint executive and Zuma.
The ruling prompted Zuma loyalists to question the Constitutional Court judges’ integrity. Top ANC member Blade Nzimande, who also heads the Communist Party, accused the judges of throwing South Africa into a “constitutional crisis” — comments that led opposition parties to voice concern about the future independence of the judiciary.
“We will accompany Jacob Zuma to court and to the presidency,” Nzimande said. “He will be the next president of the republic of South Africa, irrespective of whatever is happening.”
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