Independent on Saturday

Ramaphosa’s relief at Zuma’s jail break

WILLIAM SAUNDERSON-MEYER @TheJaundicedEye This is a shortened version of the Jaundiced Eye column that appears on Politicsweb. Follow WSM on Twitter @ TheJaundicedEye

“KAPOW!” Like the comic book hero of yore, “with one bound he was free”. No, not SuperZuma. We’re talking Sidekick Cyril.

For almost nine years, Cyril Ramaphosa was Jacob Zuma’s enabler, turning a conveniently blind eye to the scandalous hollowing out of the state. Nothing much has changed.

Ramaphosa is Zuma’s accomplice in his escape from justice. The granting of a medical pardon to the orange-overalled Zuma, without him having to spend a single night in a cell, is not only a triumph for the wily former president. Above all, it’s a testament to the guile of Ramaphosa.

No one, bar Zuma, is happier at how events have played out than is our president. He has at last wriggled free from the Zuma albatross – which has been crapping on his head for three years and threatening to choke in his throat his reform rhetoric – without the humiliation of having to back down publicly, from the politically fraught process of bringing Zuma to justice.

No words were more heartfelt than Ramaphosa, in his televised media briefing on Monday: “We welcome this. We have heard he is unwell and we would like to wish him a quick recovery, as he is restored back to his home to be with his loved ones.”

Unlike the opposition parties and civil society, outraged at the travesty of yet another prominent ANC figure getting a medical parole, and deeply suspicious of the process by which the decision was made, Ramaphosa expressed no doubts or reservations. No concern that the decision was taken by National Commissioner of Correctional Services Arthur Fraser, who is a crony of Zuma.

No concern that Fraser was Zuma’s appointee to head the State Security Agency and has now saved Zuma from incarceration for the second time.

In 2009 he was implicated in the leaking of the so-called Spy Tapes to Zuma’s legal team, which caused the prosecuting authority to drop charges against Zuma and opened the way to Zuma ousting president Thabo Mbeki.

No concerns that Fraser admits he overruled the recommendation of the medical advisory parole board. No concern that Fraser has handed Zuma the ultimate get-out-of-jail card.

Not only has Zuma’s 15-month sentence for contempt of court been invalidated, but his 20-year pending “on-again, off-again” corruption trial, which was set to resume on Thursday, is probably dead in the water.

If Zuma is too ill to serve his sentence in a top-notch private hospital room – costing the taxpayer, so far, R398271.04 for two months – then he is surely too ill to appear in court.

No concern from Ramaphosa that, despite a person who applies for medical parole having to waive patient confidentiality, we still do not know what “life-threatening” condition Zuma suffers from.

At the age of 79, even ingrown toenails are potentially fatal. But unless a court intervenes and orders otherwise, the name of the dreaded lurgy, that has laid low the previously vital and virile Zuma, will remain secret.

Another happy beneficiary of the parole is French arms manufacturer Thales – as well as a number of ANC bigwigs, implicated in that particular set of state looting – which share the dock with Zuma. Although the action against them can proceed without Zuma’s presence, it affords Thales a welcome scapegoat in the form of a man who won’t be there to contradict their evidence but, most importantly, doesn’t need to, since he is immune from ever again having to set foot in court.

The parole is a win-win situation, for both Zuma and Ramaphosa. Zuma has been squirming for two decades, trying to avoid conviction, disgrace, and a jail sentence. But prospects of the Zuma trial following that likely course were a nightmare, also for Ramaphosa. July’s orchestrated political violence, after Zuma’s arrest, was a warning to Ramaphosa of worse to come if a compromise was not reached.

The solution that has presented itself is classic Ramaphosa. As it was with the police crackdown at Marikana, Ramaphosa has shifted the execution of his wishes to forces and institutions nominally beyond his control, while calculating that the result will benefit him. As with Marikana, where 34 miners were shot dead and his reputation was grievously wounded, it may backfire.

On the other hand, there’s every likelihood that it won’t. We may well have one of the most trusting, gullible, electorates on the planet.

Zuma’s sudden acquisition of a magical cloak of immunity was not through a brass lamp and a mysterious genie. It could not have happened without Ramaphosa being forewarned and, even if not complicit in the execution, at least acquiescent.

METRO

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2021-09-11T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-11T07:00:00.0000000Z

http://independentonsaturday.pressreader.com/article/281646783260548

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