For the first 4 years of C4L’s existence, its Bulletins were
newsy – about what was happening on campus and the focus was
“advancement”. Then a decade ago it was
decided that the C4L website could take over that function, and that its Bulletins
should continue as “a voice crying in the wilderness”… influencing leaders… speaking truth to power…
shaking and moving the shakers and movers.
Over the past year, the struggle between Constitutionalists
and Triumphalists has come to the fore.
C4L continues to beat this drum for it is at the heart of Africa’s democratization.
The last C4L Bulletin sent out two weeks ago highlighted the
attempt by Kenya
to lobby the African Union to pull out of the International Criminal
Court. This was quintessential behaviour
for Triumphalists – in this case the President of Kenya and his VP, who are up for
trial next month at the ICC. The game is
always played this way – use your power and prestige to sway public opinion in
a groundswell that allows you to intimidate the justice and law enforcement
structures.
You may have heard that the Kenyans failed to persuade the
AU to pull out of the ICC? However, they
did convince the body to deploy its executive leader Dlamini-Zuma, to approach
both the ICC and the U.N. Security Council to press for a postponement of their
trial for a year, and to agree not to prosecute any sitting head of state in
future. The implications of this are a
bit scary to Constitutionalists. Let’s
put it this way – this logic could have saved Richard Nixon from impeachment
(for those of you who can remember back that far). He could have remained in office.
For five thousand years, since Hamurabi promulgated his code
in Mesopotamia, heads of state have been subordinate
to justice systems. Hamurabi himself had
to obey his own code. That is written
right in it! And if his judges screwed
up, they lost their posts permanently.
Law is not just for some but for all.
This thinking has merged with Democracy, and is often called the “rule
of law”.
A scan through today’s newspaper highlights the relevance of
this theme…
First, Vusi Pikoli has just published a book. He is the former hear of the National
Prosecuting Authority who lost his job over the NPA’s decision (not made by
himself but by his team) to prosecute Jacob Zuma. To make a long story short, the Triumphalists
won the day, ran him out of office, replaced him, and convinced his successor
not to go ahead with the prosecution.
Ostensibly the decision to reverse Pikoli’s decision to
prosecute him was made based on the emergence of new evidence. The problem is that the new evidence has not
been made public.
The Loyal Opposition went to the courts and challenged
this. They won, and in today’s news
comes Zuma’s blame game, announcing that the DA’s legal costs are over R1
million. What he means is that he lost,
and so the DA can claim its legal costs back from the government. But in the political circus, he is just trying
to make the Constitutionalists seem extravagant.
Meanwhile, in today’s news the Public Prosecutor says she
has finished her review of the Inkandla scandal. This is about millions of Rand
in public money being spent fixing up the President’s personal house. The problem is simple - she doesn’t know who
to send her report to! The Loyal
Opposition is of course baying for it to be made public. But she points out that on one previous
occasion, she was asked to investigate the President, and this very same question
arose – illuminating at the time lack of legislation. Government was charged to correct or complete
the legislation, but it hasn’t. One can
only wonder why, because this protects the President.
For example, right now he is refusing to hand over the
evidence to the DA in spite of its court victory – he wants to appeal it. Delaying the matter further. What will happen if she hands her report to
him? Will he keep that one in the same
vault as the so-called Spy Tapes? That
is what Triumphalists do.
Back to Pikoli’s book, just published. The DA says that allegations made in it “are
direct proof that the justice system is being abused for political purposes”. That is Triumphalism.
Former ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa recently
delivered the Ahmed Kathrada Lost in
Transformation 2013 annual lecture.
He stated that the ANC, the party he led at senior level for many years,
had failed to fight corruption and transform South Africa. The former ANC national executive committee
(NEC) member, who was part of a slate that lost to President Jacob Zuma’s
faction at the most recent ANC congress, said many South Africans were
disgruntled with the pace of transformation because the ruling party had failed
to deal decisively with cadres implicated in corruption.
Phosa said that unless the ruling party addressed this
scourge urgently, it would lead to its decline and subsequently erode its proud
history as a liberation movement. He
maintained that while the ANC-led government had made progress in the provision
of food security, housing, sanitation and the development of constitutional
rights, the cancer of corruption and non-service delivery remained. “Many in the ANC have faced charges of
corruption and brought the party into disrepute in a devastating and shocking
fashion,” said Phosa, imploring the government to stop blaming apartheid for
its failure to deliver services.
This quotation is very significant - he hit the nail on the
head. Inevitably, Triumphalists play the
race card. Whether it is Kenyans blaming
the ICC for having an anti-Africa bias, or provincial government officials in Mpumalanga allowing C4L
to be used for its own programming ends in what is clearly a case of “state
capture”, the approach is always the same.
Use your power and prestige to name-drop, to intimidate, to bully, and
ultimately to corrupt the rules – in your favour. If challenged, just bring up the subject of apartheid
or neo-colonialism or play the race card.
Phosa is right, people are getting really tired of this approach. Having said that, Phosa is also gone from the
Top Six, even from the NEC – himself at the receiving end of Triumphalism.
State Capture may
be a new term to you? Several example
have come to light recently of “fake NGOs”.
Basically these are actually owned by civil servants or their relatives
(like Zuma’s cousin,
Deebo Mzobe, who started an NGO called the Masibambisane Rural Development
Initiative that was reportedly pledged R900-million from various government
departments to distribute food parcels in the run-up to the 2014 election?). C4L has experienced this manifestation of
Triumphalism over the past year, and is challenging it. C4L’s policy stance is pro-Constitutionalist. It condemns corruption and “fronting”.
No comments:
Post a Comment