The Running Commentary

ANC staged this drama to perfection

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I must tip my hat to the ANC and “comrade president Jacob Zuma” for the manner in which they scripted and played out this drama. I am of course talking about the NPA’s “decision” to drop the charges against Jacob Zuma.

This outcome was hardly surprising it was inevitable, the decisions taken before Polokwane gave us some clues. The decisions taken at Polokwane certainly told us where it was going to go. Jacob Zuma himself said that “if I go down then many other bigger fish will go down too” (slightly paraphrased this one). Remember when he said this on the steps of the court house in Pietermaritzburg?

I was not surprised and neither was I shocked by the outcome, in fact the timing was almost brilliant. Just two weeks before the election the entire leadership of COPE are now brought into the mix, and for all of the wrong reasons. Clearly one of the leading reasons for the formation of COPE was the fact that many sympathised with Mbeki. Now Mbeki (number one or the big man in shell house) is stained badly, ergo all of his underlings too.

COPE are really going to have to scramble to get this one sorted and maybe we will see Mbeki actually throw his lot in with them? Will this be good or bad? Will we see this fledgling party survive this or will we see a mass “exodus” back to the ANC? The fabric of a party is measured by their reactions and how they deal with set-backs hopefully COPE will deal with this issue wisely.

Opposition political parties need to be careful not to throw too much effort into this, going to court is just going to take the focus off the job of work that needs to be done. No judge is going to change any decisions now, so don’t waste time. Focus instead on the campaign trail and ensure that the message about creating an effective opposition is the only way to ensure that we halt this type of abuse of government resources.

The NPA has not said Jacob Zuma is innocent this is a key point and will not go unnoticed by the international stage. In fact much commentary is already in the media already that calls the decision “disappointing” Code for “that is a really stupid decision and if I was not so focused on dealing with the Economic crises I would slam your little currency”.

Unfortunately the ANC is still governed like a liberation movement, which moves from one fire fight to the next without taking a long term view. The danger though in this case is that these fire fights are actually causing a destruction of the core values. The guard has changed so they are sweeping clean and are in the process of building their empires.

I am hopeful though that many of the voting public out there will not be swayed by this, I remain convinced that they understand that Jacob Zuma has not been pronounced innocent and therefore will have this doubt over his head. Say what you like about presumption of innocence, like I have said before Jacob Zuma is no ordinary citizen and therefore must prove his innocence.

So folks in a nut shell get out and vote to ensure that we can tip the balance of power from one of dictatorship to that of a true African democracy.

ANCCOPEDAelectionsIDJacob ZumaMbekiNPASouth Africa

Mike • April 7, 2009


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