Former president Jacob Zuma is expected to voluntarily surrender to police to start serving a 15-month jail sentence.
That is the word from state security agencies, which have done an initial threat assessment on the potential for civil unrest following the Constitutional Court judgment on Tuesday, which found Zuma guilty of being in contempt of an order for him to testify before the state capture inquiry.
State security agencies are working from the premise that Zuma will hand himself over within five days based on intelligence gathered thus far, Business Day has reliably learnt.
This means mass mobilisation in support of Zuma will not form part of a resistance campaign, but will be a send-off for the former president.
Sources close to Zuma also say the former president, who was able to successfully evade prison throughout his nearly decade-long term as head of state, will not “put up a fight”, but will comply with the court’s ruling. Official confirmation will come from Zuma himself in a planned public address, according to his spokesperson, Mzwanele Manyi.
The former president, who has previously stated that he would rather go to jail than subject himself to the authority of the courts, is expected to be surrounded by hundreds of his supporters when he presents himself to the police, including members of the disbanded Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA), who have camped outside his Nkandla homestead in northern KwaZulu-Natal since the judgment on Tuesday. Zuma was given until Sunday by the Constitutional Court to hand himself over to police. Failing that, police minister Bheki Cele must order his arrest.
Preparations
Business Day understands that in anticipation of the former president’s arrest and the hordes of supporters who are expected to descend on Nkandla in the lead-up to Sunday, a
committee has been convened to mobilise money to fund the transport of people to and from Nkandla from provinces around the country, according to insiders.
Edward, a son of Zuma, and Carl Niehaus, the former president’s close ally, confirmed that there were preparations being made for supporters to descend on Nkandla.
Niehaus said the Constitutional Court judgment, which has been widely hailed as a watershed moment for SA’s democracy by political and civil society organisations, has angered those who are aligned to Zuma.
But their opposition will be displayed “within the confines of the law”, Niehaus said. Edward Zuma also rejected the suggestion that his father would not hand himself over.
In a signal there are some who are still trying to persuade Zuma to resist, Niehaus said he hoped Zuma would not ask his supporters to stand down.
Police have dismissed reports that they have placed their official vehicles outside the former president’s home in anticipation of his supporters arriving. Police spokesperson Vishnu Naidoo said a vehicle that was briefly surrounded by MKMVA members on Wednesday was in line “with the local routine patrol regime”
Naidoo said: “We are also discouraging any form of gatherings which would be in direct contravention of the Disaster Management Act regulations. The only form of gathering allowed at least for the next two weeks is for funerals which are limited to 50 people.”
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