Minister Nathi Mthethwa, who mislead the public last week about the use of a secret police fund to pay for a “security fence” around his home and has not yet apologised for misleading us, and President Jacob Zuma, who has been linked to Mdluli but has not made any statements about his reinstatement and the order by his Police Minister to stop an investigation into Mdluli’s alleged corrupt activities, owe citizens an explanation. In the absence of such an explanation all reasonable people will be hard pressed not to conclude that the Minister and the President – if not themselves implicated in this web of alleged corruption – is condoning it for purely short term political purposes.

]]> http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/corruption-and-political-expediency-an-illustrated-guide/feed/ 71 http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/motlanthe-to-be-president/ http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/motlanthe-to-be-president/#comments Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:52:11 +0000 Pierre De Vos http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/?p=677 It seems to me the ANC and President Mbeki are making heavy weather out of what should be a rather obvious and uncomplicated transition. Why are they being so secretive and why are they so focused on the National Assembly to drive this process?

I was rather surprised last night when President Thabo Mbeki announced yesterday that he had handed a letter to the Speaker of the National Assembly to tender his resignation as President of the Republic of South Africa, “effective from the day that will be determined by the National Assembly”.

As I understand it, the Constitution does not require the Speaker or Parliament to play any role in the resignation of the President. It is therefore strange that the letter was tendered to the Speaker and that the timing of the resignation was abdicated to Parliament.

I am therefore not sure why he said that he will resign on a day decided on by the National Assembly, thereby purporting to abdicate the power to decide when he resigns to one of the other branches of government. It is as if the President is not aware of the provisions of section 90 of the Constitution and is therefore scared that if he resigns before the National Assembly is ready to elect a new President, South Africa will be leaderless.

When a President resigns (or if a President dies in office) a vacancy occurs immediately in his office and in terms of section 90 of the Constitution, the Deputy President takes over as acting President until such time as the National Assembly has had time to gather under the auspices of the Chief Justice to elect a new permanent President from among its members.

If the Deputy President also resigns, the cabinet must designate someone from among its members to act as President until a new President is elected by the National Assembly.

This provision is important because it ensures that South Africa will at all times have a commander in chief and that someone is automatically designated by the Constitution as an acting President until such time as the National Assembly has had the time to elect a new President. We do not want to be caught without a President in charge of our country if, for example, we are invaded by the Swaziland navy.

But maybe the President (and the ANC) is well aware of this provision and knows South Africa at no time will be without at least an acting President. Maybe Mbeki was prevailed upon by the ANC to abdicated the timing of his resignation to the National Assembly to ensure that the Deputy President, Pumzile Mhlambo-Ngcuka, does not act as President for any significant period of time. After all, she is persona non grata amongst pro-Zuma supporters and even having her as an acting President for a day or two would have upset them.

By abdicating the timing of his resignation to the National Assembly, the resignation of President Mbeki and the election of a new President can now be choreographed in such a manner that would ensure a new President is chosen on the same day the National Assembly has designates as the one on which President Mbeki resigns.

I am also quite perplexed why the ANC cannot just tell us – the electorate – who they have decided to be the new President. Now Jacob Zuma has said at a news conference that it will announce the name of the candidate to take over from President Mbeki in Parliament at a later stage. Why the secrecy? Surely they owe it to the electorate to tell us what is happening. This is not North Korea.

The election of a new President by the National Assembly must occur within 30 days after the resignation of President Mbeki. If no President is elected within 30 days, the Parliament will be dissolved and a new election will be held within 90 days.

At the moment Mr. Zuma is not a member of the National Assembly. As I have said before my reading of the Electoral Act is that it would be impossible for Mr. Zuma to become a member of the National Assembly before the next election, so he cannot be elected President before the next election is held.

If the ANC wants Kgalema Motlanthe to take over as President for the next few months, it will therefore either have to get the National Assembly to elect him as a caretaker President who will then serve as President until an election is held next June, or it will have to get the Deputy President to resign and get the cabinet to nominate Kgalema Motlanthe as acting President for the next 120 days until an election can be held.

If Motlanthe is only nominated by the cabinet as an acting President (and he is not elected as caretaker President by the National Assembly within 30 days after the resignation of President Mbeki) a general election will then have to be held within 90 days – which would be some time in January 2009.

This scenario seems unlikely because it would require South Africans to go to the polls in mid-January just when everyone is arriving back from their Christmas holidays.

So, in the next few days Mr Motlanthe will probably be nominated by two members of the National Assembly as required by the Constitution and if no other nominations are made, he will, by default, be elected as President and will serve as full President until the next President is sworn in after the next election which must be held by June 2009.

It is only after that election that Mr Jacob Zuma will then probably become our President. Meanwhile, the big unanswered question is what will happen to Vusi Pikoli.

UPDATE: Die Burger reports that the ANC wants to go for an acting President (Motlanthe) in terms of section 90 of the Constitution and not for the election of a caretaker President until next June. If this is correct we will have to have an election by the end of January.

“We have approached individual members of the ANC NEC to ensure that the removal of Thabo Mbeki becomes an ANC NEC resolution this weekend, and the majority of them are agreeing with us on this issue,” said ANCYL president Julius Malema at a media briefing in Johannesburg. “We will have Mbeki removed. We don’t fight to lose. He is going. It doesn’t matter who said what, Mbeki won’t be president when we go to the election.

If this is true and if Malema is not just talking through his nose, the question is how the ANC will legally be able to get rid of President Mbeki and what would happen if it does. The President is not a member of the National Assembly and holds his office independent of any membership of a political party. Unlike with any ANC member of Parliament, the ANC will therefore not be able to get rid of Mbeki merely by expelling him from the party or by “redeploying” him to an ambassadorship to outer Mongolia.

The ANC may, of course, ask President Mbeki to resign. If he agrees (but will this stubborn man agree to such a humiliation?) the Constitution determines that a new President must be chosen within 30 days from among the members of the National Assembly. In the meantime the Deputy President will act as President or if she also resigns, a Minister designated by the other members of the cabinet will act as President until a new President is chosen.

If President Mbeki refuses to resign, the National Assembly can pass a vote of no confidence in the President and his cabinet with a simple majority vote and then the President and the cabinet must resign. If a new President is not chosen within 30 days after a vacancy occurred, a new election must be held within 90 days.

If a vote of no confidence is passed in the President and his cabinet and they resign, the Speaker will be sworn in as the acting President until a new President is elected (within 30 days) from among the members of the National Assembly or until an election is held 90 days later later.

At the moment Mr Zuma is not a member of the National Assembly. As I read the Electoral Act, it is impossible for Mr Zuma to become a member of the National Assembly before the next election. It has been argued that Mr Zuma can become a member of the National Assembly if one of the ANC MPs resigns. But if there is such a resignation the vacancy must be filled from the existing list of candidates prepared by the ANC, which they can only review once a year. At the moment this list can only be reviewed and supplemented each April and if Mr Zuma is not now on top of one of these lists he cannot be placed on top of such a list at this time.

If the ANC therefore removes President Mbeki in the next week or two, but chooses not to have an election immediately, Mr Zuma will not be able to become President before an election is held. One of the present members of the National Assembly (Baleka Mbete or Kgalema Motlanthe?) will then have to be elected President until an election is held before the end of June next year.

So if Mr Malema is correct, we might either have an early election or we will have a caretaker President elected from among the existing ANC members of the National Assembly. If the latter rout is taken, it will be interesting to see who the ANC chooses in this role. Will it be the Speaker or will it be the Deputy President of the ANC? If it is the former, it might well indicate that there are already tensions between various Zuma factions elected at Polokwane and that some in the Zuma camp do not trust Motlanthe.

I am holding my breath to see what will happen. Whatever happens though, we are in for an interesting ride.

AFTERTHOUGHT: There is of course a very good reason why Mr Zuma chose not to become a member of Parliament along with Kgalema Motlanthe in April when the ANC had the opportunity to supplement its lists of candidates. The Court found in the Shaik case that the money given by Shaik to Zuma was not a loan as Mr Zuma and Mr Shaik had claimed. This money was a gift and Mr Zuma was obliged to declare this gift to Parlaiment which he failed to do. If he became an MP the ethics committee of Parliament would have to deal with this breach of ethics and with the fact that Mr Zuma had lied to Parliament.

Reading the interview with President Thabo Mbeki in the Mail & Guardian on the eve of the ANC national conference where he may well be unceremoniously booted from office, I could not help thinking of this story. President Mbeki appears completely baffled and out of touch with the reality that is ANC politics, no that is LIFE. As the chosen one who had never ever had to compete in a competitive election for any post in the ANC before, (and having tried to stop a contest this time around by inventing the ANC tradition of “non-campaigning”) the President seems completely unprepared for the harsh realities of electoral politics and truth-telling.

The most poignant (but also damning moments) in the interview comes when he expresses surprise and disbelief about the criticism leveled at him for centralising and abusing power. He also cannot, yes cannot understand how anybody can fear him. He says he is perplexed by such criticism because inside the ANC people have never told him this and they have always agreed with him! Take the appointment of Premiers by the President:

After the 2004 election I called all the provincial premiers and said: this is my view of who should be premier. They all agreed. Then I convened a meeting of national ANC officials; they all agreed. Then I took it to the national working committee; they actually applauded.

Even in the NEC he had never stopped debate and never wagged his finger but because he knew more about the ANC he often won the argument, but people never complained and never spoke up, which means they could not have been scared or upset.

Of course what our President never stopped to ask himself was whether it was natural that all these people always just happened to agree with him – even on such an important issue as the appointment of Premiers. Is it really normal for the NEC to applaud one man’s choices for premiers of the nine provinces when those choices were obviously highly controversial within and without the ANC? If I had the power to appoint all the premiers of the country and then ran these decisions past the premiers who had just lost their jobs and the NEC and they all cheered me on, I would be disgusted and incensed by the sycophancy and hypocrisy of my colleagues. But not our President – he actually uses this as exhibit A to exculpate himself, showing in the process how disconnected he is from any kind of reality populated by real people and not by robots.

How could our President not have known that people only show such sycophancy if they are scared of you, scared of how you can humiliate them or “fix” them later by making sure they lose their job as premier or making sure that they get a diplomatic posting to Tjikitjikistan? Did the President really think all these people applauded him because they absolutely agreed with what he said, or was there at least a smidgen of self-knowledge which made him wonder whether all the agreement was just not a bit weird?

It seems absurd for the President now to feign hurt and confusion when he acted in so many ways to bully or humiliate his opponents – often through surrogates like Essops Fables or through his men and woman on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC. Thus when Jeremy Cronin warned against the Zanufication of the ANC under Mbeki in some obscure interview he was humiliated by being forced to apologise for the “uncomradely” criticism of the ANC (but really Mbeki). What about Archbishop Tutu who was vilified and in effect called a coconut creation of the white media when he criticised Mbeki? What about the Premiers who were worked out because they seemed to ambitious? What about Matthews Phosa, Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa accused by Mbeki on national television of plotting against him?

But our president was feared not only because of his paranoia and vindictiveness and because the NEC members and ANC members of Parliament are spineless twats, but also because he is an intellectual bully with a Stalinist bent. Thus whenever someone disagreed with him it was seldom framed by him as just a disagreement, but was often turned into a fight about what was “objectively” speaking correct or wrong or true or false.

In the Stalinist fashion, opinions, ideology and disagreements were turned into a “factual” dispute in which only one person – the President – could ever be right. That is why he so loved to talk about “objective facts” and why the Blog on the ANC website often attacked those who criticised him and the ANC for its “blatant lies”. When Madladla-Routledge was fired – a disastrous decision – he attacked her and those who supported her for spreading “lies”, when what was really at stake was different perceptions and different views about what needed to be done.

A person who refuses to deal in opinions and try to turn his own views, opinions and way of looking at the world into “objective facts” is not a person open for discussion. Those cowards who were consulted about the appointment of new premiers and the yes men and woman on the NEC knew this all too well. From the Mail & Guardian interview it seems the only person who never realised this was the president himself. This makes him a tragic figure – dangerous but tragic.

Only time will tell whether the new guy will be any better….

The interview was upsetting for several reasons.

First, the fact that Nkosazana Zuma was given a full hour on one of the flagship programmes of His Master’s Voice just three days before the start of the Polokwane conference, confirms that the SABC is outrageously biased in favour of the Thabo Mbeki camp in the succession race. Nkosazana is, after all, Mbeki’s preferred successor and the reason why gender equality has featured so prominently in everything the Mbeki camp has so far thrown out there.

Second, I was depressed and saddened to think that this uncharismatic, plodding, woman with a penchant for lecturing her interviewer and the callers and condescending to them, was really the preferred choice for President of the Mbeki camp (in other words, of President Mbeki). Surely there are far better, more intelligent, charming woman out there with the ability to show at least a little bit of understanding of common humanity than this boring party hack? She sounds a bit like a less intellectually agile version of President Mbeki, come to think. What about Pumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka or Lindiwe Sisulu or even that fraudster Baleka Mbete?

Third, it is deeply depressing to see how the very important issue of gender equality has been politicised by President Thabo Mbeki and his supporters in an effort to achieve narrow political gains. It seems that nothing is sacred to them and they will politicise anything to win an argument or a battle: they will politicise AIDS even if it means that many will die and they will politicise gender even if it will set back the cause of woman for decades. Mrs. Zuma kept on repeating that she was fighting for woman’s rights and pointing to previous decisions of the ANC bodies that “there should be a woman in the Presidency” to bolster the case for her ticket with Mbeki.

This sounded laudable but rings slightly hollow. Two questions came to mind immediately.

If these people are so concerned about woman’s rights and really want a woman in the Presidency, why did they nominate President Thabo Mbeki for a third term? Surely, a true gender activist would have said that it is time to nominate a woman as President of the ANC and would have declined nomination as President (as Mbeki has decidedly not done) in favour of a woman candidate. Is it really a victory for gender equality by sending a signal that the woman must be second best and can only become the Deputy President of the party? To me it seems like an insult to woman.

Another related issue also raised by a caller seems to uncover the absolute opportunism of the Mbeki crowd. Here they were touting the previous decisions of the various ANC bodies and suggesting that those who were now not wanting Mrs Zuma as Deputy President were somehow disregarding previous decisions of the ANC. But only a few months ago the ANC Policy Conference adopted a resolution that the President of the ANC should preferably also be the President of the country, something that President Mbeki has decided to ignore. For him and his supporters now to attack the other side for not stickeing to Policy Conference resolutions smacks of the most hilarious chutzpa. Have they no shame?

Then there is the manufactured outrage by the pro-Mbeki NEC and repeated by Nkosazana Zuma about Zwelenzima Vavi’s remarks that the biggest womanisers are now claiming to be for woman’s rights. Vavi was of course referring to President Thabo Mbeki himself, who has long been rumored to be a womaniser of note. Surely, he was saying that a married man who sleeps with many woman because of his position of power in the ANC and then turns around and point fingers at Jacob Zuma, is a hypocrite of the most breathtaking kind.

Now, President Mbeki might have been a paragon of virtue over the past 30 years and might not have slept with every third wife of a comrade as rumoured, and if this is untrue the ru mour should be confronted and denied. (But not by Essops Fables because after Andrew Feinstein’s book, Minister Pahad has lost even the smidgen of credibility he might have had before.)

But, the NEC did not address this issue and failed to challenge the assumption underlying Vavi’s statement. They can then surely not say with a straight face that it is sexist to argue that a womaniser who abuses his power to sleep with woman and cheat on his wife has little credibility on gender issues. Just like Jacob Zuma cannot be said to have any credibility on gender issues after the outrageous things he said in his rape trial, so a powerful man who abuses his power to womanise cannot have any credibility.

What a sad and sorry state we are in. Where are the woman (and men) to stand up to both Mbeki and Zuma? Where are they? Hiding away like they hid away when Mbeki went mad on HIV and when the time came to suppress the arms deal investigation. Fat chance those men and woman in the ANC will ever be described as principled and courageous – definitely not by me. From now on I will just call them politicians.

What follows is an extended version of my article which appeared in Business Day on Friday in which I really try to understand why I got it so wrong. Being a paid up member of the chattering classes obviously has its drawbacks…. Here goes:

A journalist phoned me the other morning to ask “just a few questions about some constitutional technicalities”. Driving to work past the shacks where phase 2 of the N2 Gateway Project was supposed to have “cleaned up” the area but where the inhabitants have so far resisted removal to far-off Delft, I clutched my fancy cell phone while the journalist fired away.

“When Members of Parliament are convicted of a crime,” he said, “they lose their seat in the Parliament, hey? So, will Jacob Zuma lose his position as President if he is convicted of fraud and corruption after being elected President?”

My first reaction was that this was a clear sign that the chattering classes (of which I am, of course, a paid up member) had woken up to the nightmare of a Jacob Zuma Presidency. It took about one week, but there it was. After the initial glee and even delight expressed by many in private and in public about the heavy defeat of President Thabo Mbeki in the Provincial nomination process, panic about a possible Zuma Presidency is now setting in among many in the middle and upper classes of our country.

The subtext of almost all the conversations I have been part of and perhaps also the subtext of the journalist’s question, is that it is “too ghastly to contemplate” (as Prime Minister John Vorster said of majority rule in South Africa) that an “uneducated” peasant with twenty children, several wives, at least one mistress and a coterie of aggrieved hangers on could possibly take over from that other guy we do not really like either. Then there is that shower head growing out of his head that will make us the laughing stock of the world.

It is a bit like progressive Americans hearing that George Bush was killed in a plane crash and thinking: “Thank goodness we are rid of Bush”, only to realise after the initial euphoria has waned, “oh my god, now we are stuck with Dick Cheney!”

So much has been said about Jacob Zuma’s various moral weaknesses (and I have contributed my fair share to point these out) that it is difficult to keep a level head on the matter. When I read that Deputy President Pumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka reportedly said this past weekend that people should vote for someone who would rule the country correctly and that there were some who aspired to govern the country, but had no “understanding and sophistication”, it is difficult not to conclude that this is also about snobbery and class prejudice.

Is this smug middle class chauvinism which assumes that an “unsophisticated” person like Jacob Zuma cannot rule the country “correctly”, not at least a bit shocking and embarrassing for us who are supposed to believe in the egalitarian society envisaged by our Constitution? Is it not perhaps the very reason for Zuma’s popularity with the ANC rank and file who, after all, may also not see themselves as “sophisticated” but rather as down to earth people without the airs and the self-righteous arrogance of an Mbeki or a Mlambo-Ngcuka?

This kind of superior attitude – which seems to underlie much of the antagonism against Zuma within some ANC circles – seems to me completely counter productive. Such remarks just make the anti-Zuma lobby come across as know-it-all, arrogant snobs that look down on the ordinary people who vote for the ANC.

The problem is, of course, that the ANC has – with some laudable exceptions – refused to judge ANC cadres negatively unless a cadre had been convicted of a crime. The “innocent until proven guilty” mantra came to subvert and eventually delegitimise another kind of morality, a morality based on whether a person acted wisely and ethically, or at least whether a person had not acted completely selfishly, stupidly or morally reprehensibly.

By refusing to consistently judge ANC cadres for moral reprehensible behaviour unless they had been convicted by a court of law, the ethical bar was set so low that Jacob Zuma’s misdemeanors seemed rather tame. The highest court of the land may have confirmed that the Deputy President of the ANC had taken more than a million Rand from a convicted fraudster and then did some favours for that fraudster, but they were friends and in any case Comrade JZ is “innocent until proven guilty” and therefore cannot be ethically judged. Why can Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi be friends with an alleged gangster “finish and klaar” and Jacob Zuma cannot be friends with a fraudster whose brother was in charge of the Arms Deal nogal?

When President Mbeki then fired Jacob Zuma as Deputy President of the country even before he was charged with any crime and definitely long before there was even the remotest possibility of him being convicted, it seemed deeply unfair and, I would suggest, sent a signal that the “sophisticated” snobs was dealing with the “unsophisticated” Zuma, that man from the farm, because he was becoming too “uppity”. Thus Jacob Zuma’s Presidential campaign was born.

All through this debacle those of us in the chattering classes cheered on the Zuma prosecution for whatever reason, and now we find ourselves with a terrible middle class hangover.

In any event, I told the journalist that he had it slightly wrong. Section 47 of the Constitution states that members of the National Assembly cease to be eligible for membership of the National Assembly only if they had been convicted of a crime and had been sentenced to more than 12 months imprisonment without the option of a fine. That is why the Travelgate MP’s who made plea bargains that excluded a prison sentence are still in our legislature.

If Mr. Zuma is to become President, he will have to become a member of the National Assembly before he is convicted and sentenced for fraud and corruption (crimes which carry a 15 year mandatory prison sentence). Once elected by the majority of the members of the National Assembly, he will immediately stop being a member of the National Assembly and will cease being subject to section 47 of the Constitution.

Once elected as President, he would not automatically stop being President just because he was convicted and sentenced to more than a 12 month prison sentence. He could of course resign or the then pro-Zuma National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC could ask him to resign. Or the National Assembly could institute a vote of no confidence in him and his cabinet, which would only happen in our electoral system if the MP’s were so instructed by the then pro-Zuma NEC.

Finally the President could be removed from office in terms of section 89 of the Constitution if two thirds of the members of the National Assembly passed a resolution in this regard on the grounds of a serious violation of the Constitution or the law.

The fact that these issues are being discussed, means those who cannot imagine a Jacob Zuma Presidency are perhaps once again hoping that the National Prosecuting Authority and the Courts would save us form the man from Nkandla. So far all their best efforts of the NPA and its political bosses in this regard have failed, so I would not count on a conviction.

Maybe it is time to brush up on our class sensitivities instead.

1. Petrus phones and say “we were happy with the President” but why cant he give somebody else a chance. The President gives a ridiculous answer: the members will decide, this is how they elected Mandela, for example and this is democracy, it is not for Thabo Mbeki to decide whether to stand or not to stand again. But the President may have a choice of course and could have decided – like Mandela – not to encourage the members to elect him again in which case they would not have nominated him. He failed to do that, so his answer does not hold water.

2. Dealing with questioners seems to be beyond the SABC’s technical abilities so many callers do not seem to make it on the air. Many callers who phone in wish the President luck in the election and complaining about the “others” who are sending out negative messages. The President says we should always respect the truth (but not on the arms deal of course) and “while there are some among us who are campaign on the basis of lies it iss a mistake to think that people are fools because in the end the truth will come out” and they will vote for the right person.

3. A questioner says we should bring back the death penalty because that will stop crime. The President says yes crime is a big problem and, yes, let us discuss all issues relevant to this but the Constitutional Court has said we cannot have the death penalty and this is the ANC position as well. I quietly cheer on the President for his principled stance. It is much better than the answer given by Jacob Zuma last week when he said people’s views on the death penalty could be tested, which seems to suggest that if the people demand the return of the death penalty Mr Zuma will oblige.

Suddenly it is all over and I am not sure I am much the wiser. The President clearly aimed at sounding “Presidential”, but may have inadvertently come off as boring and distant. He is obviously a policy wonk, and I am not sure that plays well with ANC delegates because it could easily sounds as if he is not really caring about peoples’ problems when he gives a technical answer to a problem raised by a caller.

1. A questioner ask the President about the two centers of power and the decision at the ANC Policy Conference in June  this year when the delegates decided that it would be preferable if the President of the ANC was the same as the President of the country. But the President ignores this part of the question in his answer and explains that the ANC is bigger than one person and that there could therefore be no such thing as “two centers of power”. The government merely does what the ANC has decided and this means it is one big happy family. Once again to me this sounds out of touch, as if the President is in denial about the tension between the ANC rank and file and tripartite alliance partners on the one hand, and the government on the other, about specific issues and about the possible tension that might arise when the President of the ANC is different from the President of the country. To be crude this sounds as if human beings in the ANC have no agency and are part of a Borg-like entity (like in Star Trek) which assimilates everyone and allows the Borg to operate as a single collective without any individuality. Surely this is far-fetched? Can the President really believe this or is it politics.

2. The President says the leadership contest is not a bad thing but if a person wins he must not think that he should then “fix” his “enemies”, because the ANC is bigger than all these possible short-term differences that the camps may have. What is required is for the battle to be fought in a way that would ensure factions are not created. The brave political editor of the SABC of course fails to ask him what he thinks of the attack by one of his lieutenants, Terror Lekota, on Jacob Zuma. This response might have seen a bit rich even without the Lekota attack on Zuma, seeing that the President is seen as a man who always “fix” his enemies in the long term. Ask Tokyo Sexwale, Matthew Posa, Winnie Mandela and, of course, Noziswe Madlala-Routledge. Many people would say this is exactly why Mr Zuma is so popular – because so many people have been “fixed” or is at least perceived to have been “fixed”. Is this a wrong perception and if not, does the President not see the irony of his answer?

3. The SABC interviewer is getting bold (laughing nervously while asking the question!) by tentatively asking about the “perception” out there that the President had centralised power in his own hands. The President says no one has ever been able to say – when he challenged them – where this perception comes from. In any case, says the President, he consults people in the ANC, including chairs in the Provinces – even when appointing Premiers. The President may not have thought of the possibility, of course, that people are too scared to challenge him and may not have been brave enough to say why they have this perception exactly because of the real or perceived view that he “fixes” those who disagree with him! The ironies abound.

4. The President is asked about floor crossing and he rambles on explaining in very long and complicated terms how the legislation came about but he first hints that maybe the floor crossing should be scrapped and then he hints that maybe it should not be scrapped. “Lets put all the arguments in one pot and see what comes out of it.” Fence sitting of the highest order, but that makes the President an ordinary politician, like Mr. Zuma or anyone else, I suppose.

5. No questions from the SABC about any of the hot button issues: HIV/AIDS; Zimbabwe: Jacob Zuma’s view on woman; the fact that the President is seen as aloof and cold; the “conspiracy” against Zuma; the suspension of Vusi Pikoli, the support of the President for Jackie Selebi and Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. Oh well, the political editor of the SABC must be mindful of what happened to Jimmy Matthews and John Perlman and must need his salary more than he needs his self-respect as a journalist.

1. After ten minutes the political editor of the SABC has only asked the most sweetheart of questions of the most boring kind. The SABC would find it difficult to defend itself against claims that it is a cheer leader for the President and part of his re-election campaign unless the questions get at least a bit more probing. There is a long question quoting Stats South Africa on how much people’s lives are improving – which is of course true – but it is for the President to make these points if he can slip them in, not the SABC political editor.

2. Finally a question asking the President why he only got nominations from 4 Provinces. President Mbeki says, well, people may not look at the issues raised by the SABC about how lives have improved and may therefore not have voted for him. He adds that there is a democratic process which must be respected and so be it. That is a bland answer but at least it is correct and sounds generous. One point for the President.

3. After twenty minutes the President is still droning on about the tripartite alliance and I am once again reminded of just how uncharismatic the President can be when he gets stuck in bureaucratic-speak. He says the “objective facts” (a favourite phrase) which required the alliance to be formed still remain in place today, so the alliance will continue regardless who wins at Polokwane. He does not talk at all about the fights, the vicious attacks on him and the ANC by Zwelenzima Vavi, and the attacks by him on Vavi and members of the so called “ultra left”. This means the President really failed to answer the question. Maybe the President is not wanting to pick a fight with Vavi at this stage for clever strategic reasons (attacks seeming to energise Vavi and his supporters), but I fear it sounds as if the President thinks if he ignores the crazy attacks on him by the alliance partners, and merely states that the “objective” facts still require the alliance to continue, it will be so and will be accepted as so – regardless of what people might think they have seen happening in front of their very own eyes.

After the first section of the interview I find the President’s performance bland and really seeming out of touch with what is happening in South Africa. Maybe I am just jaundiced, but there is no engagement with the real issues raised by people inside and outside the ANC.

It sounds like the chattering classes are getting desperate and are now thinking of all the possible scenarios that could prevent Jacob Zuma from being President. But I am not sure that relying on the National Prosecuting Authority to “get rid” of Zuma was ever a clever political strategy.

It does seem that this was the strategy adopted by President Mbeki and look where that has left him: far behind and quite desperate. First Bulelani Ngcuka announced the prima facie case against Zuma without charging him along with Schabir Shaik, hoping that this would taint Zuma in a way that would put an end to his Presidential ambitions.

When that did not work, the NPA then prematurely charged Zuma, which led to the charges being thrown out of court, sending the NPA back to the drawing board. Through all this Zuma’s popularity seemed to have increased. If he is now again charged it may make him even more popular.

All through this debacle those of us in the chattering classes cheered on the Zuma prosecution for whatever reason, and now we find ourselves with a terrible middle class hangover.

In any event, I told the journalist that he had it slightly wrong. Section 47 of the Constitution states that members of the National Assembly cease to be eligible for membership of the National Assembly only if they had been convicted of a crime and had been sentenced to more than 12 months imprisonment without the option of a fine. That is why the Travelgate MP’s who made plea bargains that excluded a prison sentence are still in our legislature.

If Mr. Zuma is to become President, he will have to become a member of the National Assembly before he is convicted and sentenced for fraud and corruption (crimes which carry a 15 year mandatory prison sentence). Once elected by the majority of the members of the National Assembly, he will immediately stop being a member of the National Assembly and will cease being subject to section 47 of the Constitution.

Once elected as President, he would not automatically stop being President just because he was convicted and sentenced to more than a 12 month prison sentence. He could of course resign or the then pro-Zuma National Executive Committee (NEC) of the ANC could ask him to resign. Or the National Assembly could institute a vote of no confidence in him and his cabinet, which would only happen in our electoral system if the MP’s were so instructed by the then pro-Zuma NEC.

Finally the President could be removed from office in terms of section 89 of the Constitution if two thirds of the members of the National Assembly passed a resolution in this regard on the grounds of a serious violation of the Constitution or the law. One can assume it would never get to this as the ANC NEC would make sure of that.

But we have assumed many things, so maybe I should not say that.