Former president Jacob Zuma’s efforts to avoid serving a 15-month jail term as ordered by the Constitutional Court is simply a pressure test for SA’s constitutional democracy.
It is nothing more at this stage despite the orchestrated hysteria demonstrated by efforts of his supporters to mobilise support in response to the apex court judgment that found him guilty of contempt of court by defying an order to testify at the state capture Inquiry.
Despite Zuma being on record saying he is not afraid, and would rather go to jail instead of testifying before deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, he is now threatening a political and constitutional crisis as part of his ongoing defiance campaign. Its success will depend on the response of the ANC and the state, who must decide between paralysis or allowing the law to take its course.
FULL ADDRESS | Zuma speaks in Nkandla after meeting with lawyers
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Zuma was given five days from Tuesday by the Constitutional Court to hand himself over to the law-enforcement authorities, failing which he will be arrested. Zuma, however, told his supporters in isiZulu outside his Nkandla home at the weekend that he would be sleeping at his home on the day that he was required to be arrested.
ANC veteran Mavuso Msimang said Zuma’s weaknesses with regard to “how to use power or more appropriately how not to abuse power” were laid bare for all to see. “He just found himself in a position where he did all these terrible things.”
Dan Mafora, a research officer at the Council for the Advancement of the SA constitution (Casac) said that “the fact that there’s heavy presence in Nkandla right now and the kind of populist show of power by the former president, certainly poses a threat. He shows no intention of complying with the order.”
On Friday Zuma approached the apex court to have its order against him rescinded. The same day he filed an urgent application to interdict his arrest and challenge the constitutionality of the decision. Mafora asserted — despite Zuma’s legal tactics — the Constitutional Court’s order that Zuma go to jail was “still valid” and “still stands” and must be carried out.
Zuma’s rise to the highest seat in the country was fiercely supported by the ANC’s alliance’s partners, Cosatu and the SACP. Speaking at the SACP’s centenary launch on Sunday the party’s general secretary Blade Nzimande made a clarion call for the “law to take its course”, indicating that the organisation has turned its back on the former president.
Nzimande also warned against the incitement of civil war, after chaotic scenes which included guns being fired into the air in Zuma’s name played out in Nkandla. Without mentioning Nkandla or Zuma outright, Nzimande called on “the real” Umkhonto we Sizwe military veterans to distance themselves from the use of their association’s name in what he called “counter-revolutionary conduct”.
Zuma’s former spokesperson Mac Maharaj also spoke out. He said there was neither a political nor constitutional crisis. “This is an opportunity in SA’s history, which — if the three arms of state act accordingly — could constitute a turning point in us closing the chapter in the abuse of power and corruption and entrench our constitutional democracy.”
Reverend Frank Chikane, former director-general in the presidency, said those who called for people to protest in Zuma’s name must face the consequences. “Zuma must take responsibility for those who advise him badly,” Chikane said. He added that there was no national crisis.
Firoz Cachalia, who security branch members at then John Vorster Square, now Johannesburg Central police station, tortured for being an anti-apartheid activist in the 1980s, called the Constitutional Court’s order historic. While he perceived no constitutional crisis, Cachalia said the very nature of SA’s democratic system was facing a “serious challenge”.
Cachalia, who is the director of the Mandela Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, saw Tuesday’s order as a “bold assertion of judicial authority” in reply to an unprecedented attack from Zuma and his allies.
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