Jacob Zuma is an acid test

“It’s so unfair!” That’s the anguished lament of the perpetual adolescent and former presidents no longer feeling the love of the people.

Jacob Zuma’s whining, self-pity upon hearing the Constitutional Court verdict that will send him to jail, theoretically for 15 months, was par for the course.

Despite having been selected by Thabo Mbeki as the most upright ANC person to head the Moral Regeneration Movement, Zuma has repeatedly shown he is defiantly ignorant, emotionally impaired and possesses not a shred of shame.

He should, instead, reflect on how lucky he is. Not only has he survived claimed attempts by one of his wives to poison him, as well as by Western imperialists to assassinate him, but his own experience of the prison system is astonishingly scant, given the decades of allegations and charges he has faced.

During much of the struggle, Zuma was deputy head of the ANC in exile’s dreaded security apparatus, which engaged in gross acts of torture and murder of would-be comrades who were suspected of being apartheid spies or simply too critical of the hierarchy.

No one was ever charged with these human rights abuses and Zuma also managed to escape the scrutiny of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

He was charged with the rape of a comrade’s young daughter but acquitted, incurring no more than a stern lecture from the judge for having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman who was not his partner.

Charged in 2004 in connection with the arms deal, he managed to delay the trial for four years and then was acquitted on a technicality. Charges were reinstated, then dropped in 2009 when he snaffled the presidency.

In 2018, new corruption charges were brought. After endless delaying tactics Zuma has still to answer those 16 charges of fraud, corruption, racketeering, and money laundering, all in connection with a 1999 arms deal.

Now, Zuma’s luck has run out, with his very first conviction – 15 months in jail for contempt of court. Zuma will serve just eight months before becoming eligible for parole.

The question on everyone’s lips is whether Zuma will, by tomorrow, quietly report to jail.

His son, Edward, has said that he would not allow the police to arrest Zuma, declaiming dramatically: “I will lay down my life for President Zuma. They will not take him while I am alive.”

Probably the only person uncertain about how to handle the matter is Cyril Ramaphosa.

This may prove to be the vindication of his long, excruciatingly slow, defanging of Zuma and the radical economic transformation cabal.

If Zuma can be jailed for months without too much drama within the country or the party, it becomes much more feasible for Zuma and other card-carrying state looters to be jailed for years.

On the other hand, if the resistance the jailing provokes is fiercer than expected, it will significantly weaken the position of the president and his reformists.

Hence the ANC’s cautious response. It “noted” the judgment and would “reflect on [its] implications and consequences” at its national executive committee meeting this weekend. It urged
its supporters to remain calm during this “difficult” moment for the party.

Zuma is an acid test.