Is Jacob Zuma using black magic?

The way things happen throughout Jacob Zuma’s many escapades with the criminal justice system, there are things about it that sometimes defy logic.

He has an ability to just get off the hook, even when he should be nailed, and every time he gets emboldened by the outcome. It smacks of some extraordinary power influencing his ways. Perhaps the talk that he relies on muti is true.

Of course, we all know that the ex-president was convicted and sentenced to 15 months for contempt of court for refusing to appear before the Zondo commission to answer to allegations of his involvement in state capture.

This was in contrast to our icon, Nelson Mandela, who simply availed himself to appear in court in the Louis Luyt rugby case at the beginning of our democratic dispensation. We thought Mandela’s move would set the tone for all presidents who would follow him.

Madiba’s act left us with that sense of assurance that SA is a country where the rule of law is upheld – and that nobody is above the law.

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We’re not blind to the fact that the road travelled by our judiciary was not paved with pebbles of excellence but fenced with boulders of mediocrity here and there.

The decisions of some of our post-apartheid judges and senior prosecutors tended to justify the now-sticking label that we are a banana republic.

One of the strange rulings was Zuma’s acquittal on rape charges despite his admission that he, indeed, had unsafe sex with a young woman and then took a shower after that.

One judge merely found an existence of a “corrupt relationship” between Zuma and his then financial advisor, Schabir Shaik, but found no corruption committed by him, despite Zuma’s alleged immense involvement in the arms deal graft.

But it was former prosecution boss Mokotedi Mpshe who shocked everybody when he dropped the corruption charges against Zuma – for a flimsy reason that there was political interference. This was the same man who had earlier said he had a strong case to have the accused convicted.

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Zuma is the man who wrote and continues to write his own Hollywood movie script.

He has learned the trick of playing the political long game, a master of Stalingrad tactics.

His masterstroke in delaying tactics was to drag top prosecutor Billy Downer and journalist Karyn Maughan to court and keep everybody busy on the sideshow.

The current on-off fraud trial and his odd acquittals give the impression of a game being played by him facilitated by a system that played to his gallery in most cases.

Some blame it on black magic. They mention the burning of impepho (incense) by one MaMkhize outside the High Court in Johannesburg at the beginning of his trial. Other sangomas walked the court room floor to scatter muti and cast a spell at his trials.

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Even one Dr Khehlelezi, who calls himself “Inyanga Yodumo” (famous traditional doctor) on Facebook, has entered the fray to cast a spell on Zuma’s behalf. He predicts that he will return to the Union Buildings after the elections.

Umuti is said to cause the judicial system to act abnormally. It is able to keep judges talking in never-ending trials until they get so tired and act irrationally and release the accused.

The decision of the Electoral Court this week to let Zuma off the hook and permit him to enter the elections despite his conviction, is odd.

Especially when one of the judges also earlier noted that the remission of his sentence by the president had no link to his actual sentence, which was imposed separately by the judiciary.

But the real test of the efficacy of Zuma’s black magic would be if he returns to the presidency despite having no tangible support elsewhere, other than KwaZulu-Natal, where he may not even win.

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