Zuma amnesty idea is outrageous

Many South Africans in the anti-Zuma camp are becoming desperate to see the back of the president, who is at the nexus of an intricate web of corruption.

Any story which appears to bring that a little closer is seized upon with great eagerness.

That was the case with the suggestion yesterday that the ANC is thinking about giving Zuma amnesty on all accusations against him in return for full disclosure.

Although there is no formal proposal as yet, Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu confirmed it had been flighted as an idea.

The amnesty suggestion follows one a week ago when it was suggested that the camp of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa had proposed a payment of R2 billion to Zuma to get him to step down.

The most you can say about these stories is that they are examples of “kite flying” … putting something out into the public domain to test reaction before formally pursuing it.

However, in both cases, the suggestions are outrageous, because both are tantamount to allowing wrongdoing to go unpunished or even rewarding criminal acts.

Zuma is fighting tooth and nail to overturn a court ruling that suggests the prosecution authorities be compelled to bring the previous 783 charges against him to court again.

So it looks highly unlikely he will agree to come clean on anything else. His attitude to the rolling revelations in the leaked Gupta emails has been to smile, giggle and say nothing, promising to have his say at the ANC’s elective conference in December.

Perhaps he thinks we will forget and go away. Perhaps he has that amnesty option in his back pocket as a last resort.

We say he must not be given any amnesty. He must tell the people of this country what he and his cronies did. And then he must pay … in full.