As the ANC decides between standing with Jacob Zuma or in defence of the judiciary, the former president will have one last opportunity to argue his case when the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) meets at the weekend.
He has been invited to attend the party’s NEC meeting, which will discuss the Constitutional Court judgment that sentenced him to 15 months in jail for defying an order to testify before the state capture inquiry.
However, Zuma’s spokesperson, Mzwanele Manyi, said he was “not aware of any invitation” from the party’s top brass.
All past presidents of the party are ex-officio members of the NEC, the highest decision-making body between conferences. Business Day independently confirmed Zuma’s office had confirmed receipt of an invitation to the upcoming NEC.
If Zuma shuns the NEC as part of what those close to him have described as “final consultations” on whether he should hand himself over to police by Sunday or mobilise support as part of a resistance campaign against being jailed, it will suggest he has turned his back on the party — a climate that could lay the ground for Zuma and his allies to split from the ANC and form their own party.
Protests in defence of Zuma or as a send-off for him will be a litmus test of how much support President Cyril Ramaphosa’s opponents have. While Zuma’s recall as head of state in 2018 and the suspension of ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule showed clearly the balance of forces in the NEC, Zuma’s allies have long insisted that they have mass support of the rank and file at branch level.
The Constitutional Court gave Zuma five calendar days from Tuesday to hand himself over to legal authorities, failing which police minister Bheki Cele and police commissioner Khehla Sithole would have to effect his arrest.
Zuma is not expected to be hauled before the ANC’s integrity commission because the former president has now been criminally convicted, according to Snuki Zikalala of the ANC Veterans League. He said the party did not expect Zuma to defy the court ruling.
The judgment will send a message that ANC members who are implicated in impropriety are held accountable. “People were acting with impunity ... despite there being court judgments,” Zikalala said.
While the ANC has come out in support of the judiciary and the state capture commission, it has not distanced itself from the views of its former leader who has denounced the apex court’s ruling and the commission.
Without indicating any intention to defy or comply with the judgment, Zuma on Wednesday denounced the court ruling “as judicially emotional and angry and not consistent with [the] constitution”.
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