S. Africa Prosecutors Drop Case Against Leader of Ruling Party
Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, April 7, 2009; Page A13
JOHANNESBURG, April 6 -- South African prosecutors said Monday they are dropping corruption charges against ruling party leader Jacob Zuma, ending a long legal saga just two weeks before national elections that are expected to deliver him the presidency.
The ruling African National Congress, or ANC, hailed the decision by federal prosecutors, who said they have no intention of pursuing the allegations against Zuma, a former anti-apartheid guerrilla whose campaign was clouded by graft charges stemming from a multimillion-dollar arms deal that took place a decade ago. Zuma and his supporters say he has been the target of a political plot to keep him from becoming president.
But the decision did little to clear Zuma's name, as South Africa's head prosecutor, Mokotedi Mpshe, said the prosecuting team believes that its case was strong enough for trial and that the move does "not amount to an acquittal." Instead, he said, phone recordings submitted recently by Zuma's legal team revealed that former prosecutors and the former top investigator had tainted the legal process by discussing the political consequences of the timing of the charges.
"An intolerable abuse has occurred which impels a discontinuation of the prosecution," Mpshe told reporters in Pretoria, the administrative capital.
The decision raised new questions and confusion about the independence of South Africa's judicial system. Zuma supporters have long said the charges were cooked up by his arch rival, former president Thabo Mbeki, from whom Zuma wrested control of the ANC in late 2007. Yet while national prosecutors emphasized Monday the need to restore autonomy to their agency, opposition parties and analysts said the decision suggested the same agency had bent to the will of a ruling party led by Zuma backers.
"On whether or not the charges were improper, all that is sound and strong and has not been shaken," said Shadrack Gutto, a constitutional law professor at the University of South Africa. "Today has clarified the matter that whatever form of political interference really happened did not go to the merits of the case. I think it will be seen that political pressure has certainly made the [prosecutors] to buckle."
Helen Zille, head of the opposition Democratic Alliance, called the move "irrational and unlawful" and said her party would push for a judicial review of the decision.
Although it did not exonerate Zuma, the decision is unlikely to greatly influence the April 22 election. The ANC is expected to win handily, though perhaps by a few points less than its nearly 70 percent winning tally in 2004. Zuma's legal battle, which began eight years ago, has been in the public eye for so long that most voters formed their opinions on it long ago, analysts said.
Outside the ANC's headquarters here Monday, Zuma supporters greeted the news with what resembled an election victory party. Clad in T-shirts stamped with Zuma's image, hundreds danced and sang "Bring Me My Machine Gun," the liberation anthem that has become a Zuma trademark at party rallies. Inside, party officials said they had been vindicated.
"This decision is a victory for the rule of law, decency and common sense," said Gwede Mantashe, the ANC's secretary general. "Comrade President has endured many years of relentless persecution from individuals with ulterior motives."
With no prospect of a Zuma trial, it was unclear Monday whether South Africans would ever learn the depth of his involvement -- or of the widespread corruption many observers believe occurred -- in the arms deal, a convoluted saga that has dominated South African politics for a decade.
Much of the focus has been on the twists and turns in Zuma's case. In 2005, Zuma's financial adviser was convicted of soliciting bribes from a French arms company on behalf of Zuma, who allegedly was expected to block investigations into the deal. The conviction prompted Mbeki to fire Zuma, then deputy president, which led to a massive ruling party rift between Zuma backers and Mbeki supporters.
Days after defeating Mbeki in a party leadership vote in December 2007, Zuma was charged with 16 counts of fraud, racketeering, corruption and money laundering. Mpshe said Monday that phone conversations between the men who were at that time the nation's top prosecutor and top investigator concerned whether to announce the charges before or after the vote. He said he had no evidence Mbeki was involved.
The charges were tossed out in September by a judge who suggested they had been subjected to high-level political meddling. Armed with that ruling, the ANC forced Mbeki to resign as president, deepening the rift and prompting prominent Mbeki backers to form a splinter party to challenge the ANC's dominance.
An appeals court reinstated the charges in January and set an August trial date, raising the possibility that Zuma would be defending himself in court after winning the presidency. That prospect is now dead.
