Zondo inquiry might end in tears. But whose?
Fake Twitter accounts purporting to belong to former president Jacob Zuma and his son Duduzane have taken recently to dropping dark warnings on the social media platform. “It is going to end in tears,” the messages warn. Zuma has disowned them. But they are obviously the work of fans and neatly capture the political moment — a confluence of events building up to what promises to be the stiffest of tests for President Cyril Ramaphosa as head of both the government and the ruling ANC.
It is one of the reasons Ramaphosa is proceeding apace with an economic recovery programme in the wake of the pandemic, holding institutions to demanding deadlines and stretching his fragile administration’s ability to do anything quickly and well at the same time. He desperately needs policy success.
What will end in tears, the imitation accounts mean, is the commission of inquiry into state capture led by the deputy chief justice, Raymond Zondo. Due to close its public proceedings early next year, the commission faces a final hurdle to complete its work and, indeed, to its credibility — it has to hear testimony from Zuma and he, typically, is resisting and delaying at every possible point.
Without hearing from Zuma, Zondo will not be able to draw the quality conclusions or findings the public should expect of an undertaking of this magnitude. Zuma has made one brief appearance and, having decided this was not for him, has declined all other invitations. On Friday,
Zondo authorised the issuing of a subpoena to
Zuma, requiring him to give evidence from November
16 to November 20 .
As he made the order, a march of Zuma supporters in Johannesburg was getting under way, determined to deliver a list of demands to Zondo. One, already publicly expressed, is that ‘a conflicted’ Zondo should recuse himself. One of the organisers of the march, Carl Niehaus, insisted that despite the subpoena, Zuma would not appear while Zondo chairs the commission.
That may mean he will have to be arrested, like anyone else who ignores a subpoena. Imagine how that goes down.
In a way, it was probably meant to come to this. The question is, who blinks first? Can the system, Ramaphosa’s system, put the former president in front of the judge? It is a test of wills. Does Ramaphosa quietly consent to the storming of Nkandla to effect an arrest? South Africans, happy to turn on Ramaphosa’s lackadaisical management of our economy, too easily forget Zuma and the threat he potentially still poses. His ability to outflank and manipulate the ANC is real. He remains our nightmare.
More than 30 witnesses have implicated Zuma in state capture before judge Zondo and he could face prosecution at the end of any testimony.
His trick is to delay, and the push to remove Zondo is just the latest of many lines in the political sand. If that fails, deflection is next up. This could come in the form of a series of allegations designed to rattle the judge. Some, already circulating anonymously, which the commission has seen, suggests the judge has a child with one of Zuma’s sisters, and that in 2007 he gave Zuma legal advice and that the Guptas may have settled the bill.
Even if those are accurate, they should not worry Zondo. The commission exists because Zuma would not answer questions from former public protector Thuli Madonsela. Gupta money was already quietly oozing its way around Zuma in those days. And if Zondo has the child in question, who cares? I have no doubt he would have declared such to the man Zuma himself chose to appoint the head of the commission — chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng.
The point, though, is not to remove Zondo. The point is to delay. By now it’s December and the holidays loom. By late January Zuma might be under actual pressure. The NPA, having tasted the sweet fruit of public approval when it first made state-capture arrests in October, has made more. Ace Magashule, Zuma acolyte and ANC secretary-general, has friendly media regularly running stories about his imminent arrest, just to keep the country on edge and supporters at the ready.
And the much-delayed ANC national general council is just a few months away, Covid second wave or not. It can’t remove Ramaphosa but it can stop him in his tracks. He will by then have missed economic recovery plan deadlines on digital spectrum and power supply. SAA will still be on the ground despite a party instruction to make it fly. More lockdown will turn the country against him.
It is going to be tough but not impossible. Ramaphosa has an ANC NEC majority on corruption. He can’t influence arrest warrants but as long as he is still standing, a Zuma arrest, perp-walk included, in the first half of next year might do the incumbent no harm at all. It depends on who has the bigger balls.
A Zuma arrest, perp-walk included, in the first half of next year might do incumbent no harm at all