ANC calls for Zuma charges to be thrown out
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) wants a judge to throw out corruption charges against its leader for the sake of the country.
As thousands started to gather in support of Jacob Zuma, the ANC said the party hoped the Pietermaritzburg High Court would accept its leader’s claim that the charges against him are unlawful and unconstitutional.
Spokeswoman Jessie Duarte said: “We really hope that today we will see a change in the mood of the country so we can move on with the business of developing the country with Mr Zuma at its helm.”
Mr Zuma is next in line to become South Africa’s national president at elections due next April or May.
If Judge Chris Nicholson reject’s Mr Zuma’s application, then his legal team will continue its battle in the courts, with a hearing in late November for a permanent stay of prosecution.
This will frustrate – but not prevent – his campaign for the presidency. Given the ANC’s overwhelming majority, its presidential candidate is certain to be elected.
Mr Zuma faces one charge of racketeering, four charges of corruption, a charge of money laundering and 12 charges of fraud related to a multibillion-rand government arms deal in the late 1990s. He claims he is the victim of a political vendetta by his rival Thabo Mbeki, the current president.
Mr Zuma was charged in 2005, but that case was dismissed on a technicality in 2006. He was recharged last December, just days after being elected ANC president.
His lawyers say the charges should be dropped because the National Prosecuting Authority did not allow Mr Zuma the chance to make representations when it decided to charge him again.
Mr Zuma, a 66-year-old former guerrilla leader, is hugely popular among poor South Africans who feel alienated by President Thabo Mbeki’s intellectual aloofness and are tired of waiting for their living conditions to improve 14 years after the end of apartheid.
Tensions have mounted in recent weeks with Zuma supporters threatening to make South Africa ungovernable if his trial does go ahead. Influential ANC Youth League leaders have repeatedly said they are prepared to kill and die for Mr Zuma – declarations which have set alarm bells ringing in a nation with such a bloody history.
There is also mounting concern that senior ANC figures have accused top judges, including those of the constitutional court, of bias for handing down a series of rulings against Mr Zuma, who has used every level of the legal system to appeal against the charges against him.
Ms Duarte said the ANC did not condone violence and did not want to undermine the rule of law. But she said the party understood the “anxiety” of young people supporting Mr Zuma.
“Many of today’s youth were children when this started,” Ms Duarte said. “Many feel they cannot continue to have a person they respect denigrated continuously in the media.”
Several thousand demonstrators gathered in a cold drizzle outside the Pietermaritzburg High Court to declare their belief in Mr Zuma’s innocence and demand that charges be dropped.
Cheers erupted as Mr Zuma arrived at the court complex.
More than 5,000 people protested on Wednesday outside the Durban offices of the National Prosecuting Authority, and tried to force their way into offices housing the Scorpions, an elite unit that conducted most of the investigations against Mr Zuma.
