Earlier today, South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority announced that the corruption charges against Jacob Zuma (the ANC's candidate for President in the upcoming April 22nd elections) would be dropped because of the political agenda that motivated the charges. The opposition party and other major parties have spoken out against the decision - many saying that the reasons given and evidence used to prove the political motivation of the charges still don't erase the question of whether or not Jacob Zuma received a bribe in the now infamous South African arms deal: a multi-million dollar deal to purchase arms in 1999 when South Africa had no discernible threats or enemies against it. This deal has been described in popular media outlets as the deal that tarnished the post-apartheid democratic South Africa's innocence - a sign that the former freedom fighters turned politicians had lost connection with the people whose integrity and equality they were fighting for.
Many critics - Xolela Mangcu being one of the most articulate and outspoken I have read recently - have suggested Zuma should have bowed out of presidential consideration last year because of the charges circulating about him, but also because of his divisive presence within the ANC party (Mangcu's recent book, To the Brink, lays out a really interesting social history of Black intellectualism and democracy as well as commenting on the recent Zuma situation). Instead of stepping back for greater party unity, Jacob Zuma has pushed on and continues to mystify and frustrate me with his actions. Most recently, his decision last week to curry favor from the Afrikaans voting community by proclaiming to them that "Of all the white groups that are in South Africa, it is only the Afrikaners that are truly South Africans in the true sense of the word." This position is puzzling - besides interrogating his double "trues" - considering it was Afrikaner nationalism that contributed most to developing apartheid policies and also that Zuma comes from KwaZula-Natal, the only province in South Africa that has a primarily ethnic English white population.
Comments