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.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in