Former President Jacob Zuma has been sentenced to 15 months imprisonment for contempt of the Constitutional Court. He retires into history as the first Head of State ever, of the geographical space called South Africa, to be sentenced to a jail term. He will also be the first high profile political figure to be detained without trial. His arrest has already cost the country's economy a sizeable amount of billions, and reputational costs not yet computed. According to estimates from within correctional services, and if he qualifies all set criteria, the former Head of State might be due for release in the next six weeks, 5th October 2021 to be exact. This release will be both unprecedented and a domino of interesting proportions.
In political capital terms it is arguable what the extent of the cost or gain to the governing African National Congress and its leadership, notably the President as a person and the NEC, is. The state of national disaster condition the country finds itself in, with its 'unintentional' consequence of a shrunken free political activity space, has made it difficult to can accurately gauge the depth of discontent or excitement at the arrest of the former President. The country is in fact not only in a COVID19 induced political comatose, but also in a state of borrowed political stability, until the true and actual mood of society is tested in an election of leadership within the governing party, and ultimately society through a national election.
The condition of shrunken political activity through the enforcement of COVID19 containment protocols, notably social distancing and restrictions on meetings, has created a 'semi-political' state of emergency firmament over South Africa's national politics. The near absence of alternative political questions in the media space has, correctly or otherwise, established an impression that a particular narrative around the arrest of the former President is managed out of the public space.
What may not be easy to restrict is the speech at a possible reception or welcoming political rally of former President Zuma upon his release. It is a well known fact that those aligned to his type of politics have a proven capacity to attract into stadiums crowds the incumbents have yet to demonstrate they can. If it is their political future, which is arguably in ICU, that must be saved, the welcoming rally of Jacob Zuma ranks as the top most event through which they can redeem themselves from a meticulously executed process of marginalising their political voice. If there are bets made on their endgame, these will be under review when Jacob Zuma steps on that podium and speaks to 'his people' and sings his 'appropriately chosen' war and 'I-am-a-victim' songs.
It is unimaginable that the so-called RET forces will not take advantage of the political mileage this will provide to them. The KZN and Gauteng events that followed his arrest, and to date still lingering in the psyche of society, remain leadership and content less. The cushion and comfort of characterising them as criminal and mere looting, might burst into a content driven movement to address the underlying, and profoundly airbrushed reasons for the costly societal outburst triggered by Zuma's incarceration. The Phoenix Massacre egg dance, the increased unemployment rate, the now difficult to conceal inequality, the racial indifference on the importance of abaNTU lives, and the somewhat 'compromised' independence of the judiciary has put South Africa on a path to its most consequential reviews as a democracy.
It might be the Zuma speech that makes or breaks the country's full political dams. If Jacob Zuma's threats of being in possession of 'secrets' about his 'comrades', and he still does not spill the beans are true, it can be argued that his political maturity might be in our good stead as a nation. There has been muted praises of Zuma being too loyal to his ANCness that he even forgot to be a Head of State when he should have been, and if these are true, we can expect him to also put the ANC in his priorities when he steps on that welcoming rally podium. It will be the collective wisdom of those around him, and those that might be deployed by elders of the South African society, that will instruct Zuma's last songs to a country on tender hooks manufactured by immature triumphalisms of the NASREC outcome.
As stadia, tv screens, radio speakers, and social media feeds will have become magnets of interest to those that want to hear Zuma's ' free-from-jail' speech, the political obituaries of many in the current NEC might be in print. If the muted reasons of some in the current NEC refusing to be part of a new 'reshuffled' Cabinet are anything to go by, the built up to the speech might have begun. In KZN terms, one of South Africa's influential 'tribes', 'ethnic groups', or 'nation'; depending on how you chose to call it, the Zulu, is in a state where it needs a 'strong leader', given the untimely death of King Goodwill Zwelithini, and the decline in influence of Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi over a feuding Royal household, and Zuma might play into that vacuum. Either way, stepping on that podium will be determinant to the 2022 ANC Conference and the political trajectory South Africa will take.
Whilst this remains a view, there are views in the country that have in fact immortalised the victory of 'the rule of law' by a 'rule by law' judgement over 'Jacob Zuma's' 'constitutional delinquency'. In his quest to save himself from an otherwise proven to have been resolute on his arrest judiciary, Jacob Zuma has not only stretched to the limits the capacity of our courts to afford citizens their right to be heard, he has also put to test the emotional intelligence of those charged with the adjudication of arguments inside the very courts. The ability of judges to stay on the lane of what is correct in law, and ignore how political the accused acts, was the most tested, as the judgement went on to quote what the former President said outside of court as a reason to decide inside of court. It is these cognitive theatrics in the cognitive elite world that will be facing the potential furnace the Zuma Speech might dispense to an otherwise not so healthy post-apartheid criminal and civil justice system.
As we imagine the Zuma speech, we should equally think of the songs he will sing. There will surely be new compositions and selective repeats of those that worked in and towards Polokwane. As a friend commented in a conversation on this matter, 'what if Jacob Zuma announces that he will be standing as President of the ANC again?'. 'What if he calls for an early ANC Conference to recalibrate Its centre?'. Far fetched as these questions maybe, they are now asked.
In our country, learning from our past has become a race between the information we have in our command and the number of hypotheses we construct.
🤷🏽♂️A ndzo ti vulavulela
🤷🏽♂️Be ngisho nje
🤷🏽♂️Ek praat maar net.
Interesting article and very spot on
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