The fight against corruption placed on the back burner

In many other democracies, a man thanking people who staged an insurrection which resulted in the loss of hundreds of lives and huge destruction of property, would be arrested and charged with inciting treason or terrorism.

Yet, surprise, surprise, when Jacob Zuma did just that this week, nothing happened to him. Just as nothing seems to have happened to the ringleaders behind last year’s uprising in various parts of the country.

That “protest” Zuma was applauding was supposedly in support of him and his fight against “unjust” imprisonment. Inasmuch as Zuma’s words – at a public gathering after his court appearance this week – were incendiary because they praised an antigovernment uprising; they were even more ominous because of the implication that there could be more of the same if he doesn’t get his way.

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His way, apart from dodging all legal accountability for corruption, also appears to include an attempt to get back into the ANC’s top structures by his “willingness” to accept nomination as national chair at the party’s crucial end-of-year elective conference.

Political analysts we spoke to do not believe there will be any action taken against Zuma for his words. No one, they say, in the ANC has the guts to tackle the man they would like to portray as a political has-been.

This is because no one is quite sure how his home province of KwaZulu-Natal – the biggest in the ANC – will jump at the end of the year.

So, in typical ANC fashion, there will be many soothing words about “unity” and commitment to the party’s programmes … all fluff while the fight against corruption is placed on the back burner.

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This leaves the impression that the ANC’s commitment to eradicate looting is superficial at best and, at worst, a smokescreen to allow the plunder to continue unhindered in the future.