Quote of the week
Mr Zuma is no ordinary litigant. He is the former President of the Republic, who remains a public figure and continues to wield significant political influence, while acting as an example to his supporters… He has a great deal of power to incite others to similarly defy court orders because his actions and any consequences, or lack thereof, are being closely observed by the public. If his conduct is met with impunity, he will do significant damage to the rule of law. As this Court noted in Mamabolo, “[n]o one familiar with our history can be unaware of the very special need to preserve the integrity of the rule of law”. Mr Zuma is subject to the laws of the Republic. No person enjoys exclusion or exemption from the sovereignty of our laws… It would be antithetical to the value of accountability if those who once held high office are not bound by the law.
Secretary of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector including Organs of State v Zuma and Others (CCT 52/21) [2021] ZACC 18
It is my contention that the ANC’s leadership crisis is greater at a collective level than it is at individual level. To some extent, the failures of an individual leader can be mitigated by a strong collective. Such a collective can be useful even when an organisation is in the middle of a golden period of leadership because it can defend the membership against the imperious tendencies of a capable and popular leader. We saw an attempt to do this in 2005, when the national executive committee of the ANC called on Zuma and Mbeki to craft a joint solution to what was becoming a bruising battle between their supporters in the months following the axing by Mbeki of Zuma as deputy president of the country. Their failure to craft such a solution precipitated another element of the leadership crisis — the collapse of the leadership collective and the open political warfare that followed. It is in this context that we must understand the battle for Mangaung. – Aubrey Matshiqi in Business Day
