So it would appear, according to the media and opposition mouthpieces at least, that the president is all but set to grant Schabir Shaik a presidential pardon. At least that is what the opposition allege and the media are not too shy to fan that particular flame. And why not? Zuma and Shaik are circulation gold bar none except Julius Malema. But of course whenever things get hysterical in this wonderfully heated country of ours, the whole point of the matter becomes a sad and sorry victim to agendas.
Fact is the opposition and general society are quite right to be vigilant against abuses of state power, especially where it pertains to people getting an unfair advantage by virtue of their connections. Tolerating such would be tantamount to negligence and an abrogation of our duties as citizens and guardians of our own democracy.
Where the point is missed though is when the matter gets crystallised into personalities instead of the more significant legal and political issues at play. We must not forget that in a society as (increasingly) fragmented as ours, turning matters into us vs them and pointing angry fingers only ever serves to cloud the issue and make any attempt to gain positive ground futile. Thus I despair when the opposition turns the (non?) issue of Shaik’s (unconfirmed) plea for a pardon into an attack on Zuma’s integrity as a person and a leader.
Currently we have random journos following Shaik everywhere but the gents and not quite thrilling us with somewhat less than riveting detail of his grocery-shopping expeditions and leisure activities in a sad attempt to stir up some indignation and mass revolt against one man who is quite irrelevant in the day-to-day running of the state. All that this achieves is that the opposition and their friends in the media come across as angry little political ferrets concerned only with personal crusades against individuals. Who wins when a sad little man is hounded around by vultures just waiting for him to either drop dead or break down and confesses all in humiliation?
Don’t get me wrong, democracies need watchdogs and “angry ferrets” to keep a vigilant eye on things — it was such ferreting that exposed the dark underbelly of the arms deal after all — but when your goals reach beyond being a noise in the crowd and you are trying to project yourself as a viable ruling/governing alternative, a more positive and less hysterical approach is needed.
The electorate indicated exactly how they felt about JZ and his perceived integrity in last year’s elections. And his increased approval ratings since show that his perception as a leader is growing. Why then choose to attack that? What could be gained? I would contend that a more positive approach — and one which would not alienate the opposition further from the electorate — would be for the president to be asked to detail openly the criteria he uses when considering appeals, for him to reveal the full list of applicants for pardons and then be held accountable to his own criteria if and when appeals are granted.
This removes the vindictive personal angle from the matter while also establishing a standard the president can be held to in later years when he has no personal friends on the pardons list. The pres will always grant some pardons, and he will always be expected to make that list public. He simply has no other choice. Why then scream and shout about who is on that list when no-one knows for certain if a formal, final list has been compiled? It is very easy for the Presidency to deny any allegations regarding this as until they release the list, nothing can be proven. Surely if I can figure this out then our dozens of well-respected analysts can? Shaik’s pardon is quite probable, but it is by no means done and dusted, unless of course someone out there is holding out on evidence to the contrary?
It is far easier to discredit a person through their own actions rather than through finger-pointing and name-calling. Again, a lesson that should have been learnt at some point between JZ’s dismissal as deputy president in 2005 and last year’s elections. Right now JZ and the ANC have endured enough vitriol and media persecution to have absolutely nought to lose by going ahead and granting Shaik a pardon. Really, can JZ be any more vilified over this than he already has?
A more positive approach says you are concerned about broader democratic values over cheap immediate political points. The tripartite alliance is doing a great job of showing just how damaging a petty points-scoring contest can be. Why then would any political body serious about being seen as a viable alternative follow exactly that model?
If SA had to choose between screaming idiots who were at the forefront of the struggle and screaming idiots who were living a life of privilege during that time, I know who 75% of them would go for.
Siyabonga, try this. Google “ANC” and “Corruption”. I get 823,000 hits. So surely you would agree that corruption is a big problem. Now how many people can you name who have been sentenced for corruption? Most people can only name Shaik – and that’s why the “matter gets crystallised into personalities.” He represents much more than just “a sad little man”, “one man who is quite irrelevant”. He is the number one personification of our biggest problem.
“If SA had to choose between screaming idiots who were at the forefront of the struggle and screaming idiots who were living a life of privilege during that time, I know who 75% of them would go for.”
Onezindlebe akezwe. Ngiyema lapho.
I have to agree with you. The focus on Shaik has become too shrill and personal, and what should be a concern for equality before the law has taken on the flavour of a vendetta. I also think people have prejudged the question of a pardon, and must not impugn the president’s integrity based on an assumption. However, I also would like to hope that if SA had to choose between state resources being illegally diverted to those who are currently living a life of privilege, and being legally used to uplift the majority who are not, that they would be able to distinguish between the two and not conflate political loyalty with genuine need.
Political leaders & Members of Parliament are paid by us – THE TAXPAYER. They are elected to serve the people. Therefore they must be prepared to listen to constructive critisicm & advice from the electorate. The public media as well as Parliament serve as the conduits. However, in most African countries this is not the case. In Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Angola and more, if a citizen, or the media, were to challenge the President, on moral or ethnic grounds they would face imprisonment. If the New South Africa, Madiba’s gift, is to survive, our poltical leaders, by choice, must uphold press freedom. If the heat in the kitchen becomes too hot they must get out. Otherwise SA will follow the path of our neighbours – power corrupts & absolute power corrupts absolutely.
You miss the obvious – that Mr Shaik is supposed to be on his death bed, spending his last agonising days with his family where in fact he is blatantly living the high life, and to tip it all – the ANC led government and many of their supporters simply can not arrive at and express the logical and obvious conclusion of this farce.
Don’t get this article – just semantics and a matter of perceptions. Any way you look at it, the principle remains the same. You sound like someone clutching at straws trying to defend Zuma. The smugly ambiguous answer given by the presidency about Shaiks pardon application shows the contempt in which it holds the press, the opposition, and the public.
The state has shown the ability to cow the public into accepting a new definition for the term ‘terminally ill’.
It is the blatant political conniving which ups the ‘shrill’, whereas most of the public do not give a shit about Shaik the person, but rather how a convicted criminal is being favorably treated due to his connections to Zuma and the ANC. You wrongly focus on the personalities and not the issue.
A pardon will just be a continuation of this disgusting government behavior.
This is an extremely well thought out article. Please explain to me why the ANC and it’s increasingly affluent supporters, not start a newspaper sympahtetic to it? I find it completely baffling why they continue to complain about media coverage, they enjoy support from two thirds of the country, yet seem to be incapable of getting a “government mouthpiece” launched.
When the oppersition via a proposed private members motion seeks to set principals for pardon in place, to assist the President in this difficult and emotional decision making process,(Mbeki complained that it was a very difficult to consider pardons and was fraught with dangers) what is the ANC’s response?
Accuse the member of using suspect/useless legal opinion to help draft the bill or of seeking cheap publicity.
Take the process out of the realm of buddy buddy political party decision making by setting down firm, open and moral easy guiding rules is what is required and therby save our justice system.
Brent
I believe the author is missing the point completely. He dismisses Shaik as a “sad little man” who is “quite irrelevant in the day-to-day running of the state” while questioning how the media can turn the Shaik plea “into an attack on Zuma’s integrity as a person and a leader.”
Wake up and smell the coffee or roses or whatever awakens your senses. Zuma and Shaik are inextricably linked. Shaik was found guilty of all sorts of corrupt acts linked to Zuma, the NPA for some unknown reason chose to leave Zuma out of that court case although he was centre stage throughout, Zuma’s charge sheet contained almost 800 items, and Zuma did all sorts of fancy footwork to stay out of court. In the end, political manouevering achieved this after a loyal cadre in charge of the NPA contrived some convoluted reasoning to justify such an act.
What is clear is that Shaik has the goods on Zuma, and probably also enough goods to blow open the whole arms deal (in which, I believe, Zuma was onlya minor player). Although the courts were sufficiently independant to convice and sentence Shaik, the government and ANC and Zuma owed Shaik big time, so they contrived the hospital time for Shaik instead of prison time, the medical parole, and no doubt in time will contrive the pardon.
It all stinks.
To high heaven.
And it confirms Zuma’s guilt.
Shame, in your zeal to defend JZ and the ANC – while deftly back handing anyone who disagrees and vilifying those with the circumspection to question – you have overlooked the glaring fact, which was and is the Shaik / Zuma union. If not in court at the very least in public opinion, local as well as international. Of course i would venture that the international community and those who do not fall into your 75% category are irrelevant…right. Doesn’t make them inconsequential though Siyabonga, you would be wise to keep this in mind.
All the jabber and justification in the world from our president as to how he decides on his pardons wont detract from the fact that his realtionship with Shaik was and remains of concern. Even after his involvement among other tragic decision and subsequent election to the highest office in the country you still don’t get it.
The question of how the ANC rules and deals with its members is cause for concern, this case of Shaik is the voice of everyone which is asking – what now, can we trust our government, are they transparent and more importantly are they nepotistic ego and greed driven.
I trust that all of us South Africans wake up to the reality that the accountability of our president is the litmus test for our future survial,economically, socially and politically.
As a nation we cannot allow grey to be the color of choice in our leaders.
If he is pardoned this time, will he be able to keep his grubby little hands out of the state cookie jar? Once convicted of yet another offence will he try the terminal illness ruse again? One can only look forward to his release knowing that he is prone to stupid attention seeking behaviour. Go Shabby!
@ bobi
What is your point? Google “labour party” and “corruption” or “Republicans & Corruption” or “Apartheid & Corruption”…I can go on.
We black South Africans in the majority run the danger of a vindictive posturing that may harm us.
It is a human tendency to be spiteful against those whom you perceive to be your enemy and certainly the behaviour of some whites feeds such attitudes. But we must never lose sight of the fact that we have an ideal democracy and country to build where we demand the highest standard of ourselves and our leaders and never hold them in reverence. In a democracy we have elected these fellow fallible men from among ourselves to run our affairs not to rule us. Pre-emptive measures are necessary to protect them from themselves. Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that unlike Europe we never had the chance to overthrow our Kings and the aristocracy.
Similarly on matric results of what benefit is blaming the past in more than 15 years? Suppose the white people left SA then what value will blaming apartheid have? We know the legacy of apartheid which I call underdevelopment? We have the channels of cultural hegemony to conscientise the masses of the importance of education, the wherewithal of getting experts worldwide, the material resources to execute the goals. Surely we should be turning a corner if there was a political will.
It is the height of self delusion, deception to measure the ANC’s achievements for the majority against that of the apartheid government. The ANC’s achievements can only be scored against that which is possible to achieve.
good point Mike.
Zanu-Pf has The Herald (wonder what happend to the rest?), so why can’t ANC get their views across in printed media?? Shame. So all thats left are these non-working class mediums: the blogs.
SABC is not enough.
Anyway, agree with William Smith: but its a more chilling problem:
JZ, and the post-Polokwane cabal who for now run the ANC, are as un-ANC as J.Malema is a fighter for helping young SA’s prepare for a brighter future.
What counts is what they can strip of SA’s assets before they too get the boot.
SA’ns are not studid and they don’t like free-riders.
Eventually the wheel turns.
But I hope there are enough of us who see through this crap!
And no, Mark Robinson, the Shaik saga can never be milked enough: as it is the most glaring example of misuse of state power, influence and backroom deals!!
Is that the country we all celebrated for in 1994?!? NO!
This must be exposed and revealed for what it is
Alto I could not have put it better myself. This situation is an unholy farce and you can bet your bottom dollar a presidential pardon will be granted and justice will NOT have prevailed once again. When Shaik was sentenced the judge pronounced that Shaik and Zuma basically had “a corrupt relationship”. Enough said. And yet both are as free as jaybirds. So much for independence of the judiciary.
“the president to be asked to detail openly the criteria he uses when considering appeals, for him to reveal the full list of applicants for pardons and then be held accountable to his own criteria if and when appeals are granted.”
I believe that this has been done and dodged already.
“If SA had to choose between screaming idiots who were at the forefront of the struggle and screaming idiots who were living a life of privilege during that time, I know who 75% of them would go for.”
Here Here
Shaik’s case is the epitome of everything that stinks of corruption in this country and it is his fellow countrymen and women who are acid about his ongoing freedom, especially since he always looks so well. The media and opposition parties are only putting into words what many others are speechless about. It’s not the media who see the man largely living life, it is the public. The public then passes the facts on to the media and opposition parties, hoping that something can be done to rectify what is quite obviously (we all have eyes) the ultimate fraud. Exercise was quite possible in a cell/hospital ward; thousands of naval hands have exercised on submarines over the years. Had Shaik escaped imprisonment by ‘escaping’, he would have needed to keep out of the public eye. Instead, he flouts the terms of his parole, just as he conned the entire justice, legal and prison systems. He cares not one jot about anyone in this country, possibly, least of about JZ. This makes me assume the biggest portion of the fraud of which he was convicted, has yet to play itself out. I cannot for the life of me suppose that JZ is innocent in all this. The two must be in league!
Missing the point…Shaik shouldnt be shopping for groceries at all, he is a criminal and should be behind bars, making plastic bags for the rest to put their groceries into!
The media and DA though have killed and trivialised this matter though…DA has used the wrong tactics on this one.
In response to the article one must consider that the whole point of ferreting Shabir Shaik stems from his preferential treatment at hospital in stead of in jail, and his parole due to a terminal “condition” (which now turns out to have been a magestic misunderstating of reports and has therefore become a huge farce.)
The attacks on Zuma stem from the fact that he had was party to corruption etc (although this has not been proven in court does by no means mean that he is innocent as some would want to believe. A person caught red-handed committing a crime is guilty of such a crime – ONLY during the court proceedings is he considered innocent intill proven guilty for sentencing purposes only – he is still guilty of having committed the crime.
The government of this country are and is supported by kaksitrocatic people.
It is not about Shaik or Zuma for that matter. But about the much lauded and often ill-treated principle of being equal before the law. You don’t need a Ph.D to know that Shaik was always favourably treated whilst in prison and his application for parole was fast tracked. Do you even know how many inmates are languishing in prison awaiting a reprieve because of their REAL terminal illness. Not this nonsense about hypertension and high blood pressure which saw Shaik leave prison on a stretcher nogal.So your argument is very hollow and I suggest that you do not comment on any issue again unless you grasp the underlying principles.
Simphiwe: “If SA had to choose between screaming idiots who were at the forefront of the struggle and screaming idiots who were living a life of privilege during that time, I know who 75% of them would go for.”
After all, if criminals are “our criminals” then whatever they do is OK, isn’t it?
Siya you sound like one of those ANC comrades who always try and use big words and confusing phrases to steer away from the real issue and truth. Jacob and Shaik were deemed in a court of law to be a corrupt pair. If Shaik is arrested and released so quickly you think we shouldn’t start pointing fingers at his friend? that’s not going to happen. we don’t need to study a masters in political science and psychology to understand that Jacob organized a deal for his friend. Shaik could have ratted on Jacob but he didn’t. He rather spared JZ’s reputation (if there’s any left to speak about)in order for him to be president. Now that he’s president he needs to return the favor. Eugene is a token to shut the apartheid boys in order to save our economy seeing that a chunk of it is still run by them. Asking Jacob to reveal the truth about any of his actions & decisions would be as successful as asking a liar to tell the truth. Our current president is not shy about doing as he pleases and then gloat about it. It’s like this 20 wives thing that we have to deal with. Mxim he needs to conclude his term as soon as possible, so we can get a real president to lead our people
@ Nyathi, I don’t like that attitude. yes Bobi has lost the plot there a bit but I don’t think we should be bringing up past abuses to substantiate our own current abuses of state power and assets. we all know this current ANC government is running our country as if it were a circus, and this ish aint funny no more. these guys need to get the hell out of government fast or else we will be left with nothing like zim