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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2021 10:09 am 
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The other shoe has started to drop. Massive riots in Kwazulu-Natal (where most of Zuma's support base is) and Gauteng (where most of the government can be found), with a certain amount of clamouring to 'free Zuma'. I suspect that some of Zuma's 'associates' are deliberately encouraging this sort of thing.

Couple of hundred violent protestors have been arrested (for, you know, violently protesting) but I feel that the intent is clear here; Zuma's trying to arrange a situation where he cannot be safely imprisoned.

Fortunately for the rest of us, I don't think Ramaphosa's particularly inclined to bend, right now. Partly because Zuma is very very much the sort to take a mile if given an inch. If he gets out of jail early, he will take full advantage of the idea of unjailability.

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Tue Jul 13, 2021 3:43 pm 
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One wonders if someone is considering whether or not he should be shot while trying to escape, or commit suicide...

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2021 7:37 am 
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Zuma never struck me as the suicidal sort. If he dies in jail - for any reason - it will immediately be blamed on President Ramaphosa (along with the CIA, America and/or Europe in general, people of different skin colours, and a pick of other wild conspiracy theories).

He'd be a martyr, and things will very quickly get worse.

...in newer news, social media posts stay around and can be taken, after the fact, as evidence to court cases. Two of Zuma's (many) children, and one theoretically opposed politician, are going to have to answer difficult court questions about whether or not they deliberately incited the violent protests that we've seen over the last few days. Whatever the result, I imagine that any inciters will try to quiet down a bit; and, as a result, the violence is likely to die down (only to return in the form of angry political statements around the time of our next election).

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2021 5:30 am 
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So. Now that the dust has cleared a little.

Yes, there was massive rioting in KwaZulu-Natal, where a lot of Zuma's support base is. And in Gauteng, where our economic hub is. And reports suggest that it wasn't just random rioting; rather, it was planned, deliberate destruction of economic infrastructure, some of which will take years to properly repair. (It appears that there were also deliberate attempts to spark riots in other provinces; but these were stopped before triggering anything significant.)

It's been described as the worst violence to hit the country since the end of Apartheid.

However. Fortunately - very, very fortunately - it wasn't enough to destabilise the country.

It was enough to overwhelm the police - even after the army was called in to help out. But it turns out that the police and the army aren't the only forces for law and order in the country. It also turns out that there were a lot of people who were forming human shields to protect shopping malls and other economic hubs. And apparently that was enough to turn the tide.

........we're going to be picking up the pieces from this for a time. For a long time, really. And the entire KZN province, which is where the worst of it happened, may take a very long time to recover - given that economic growth will continue happening in places less touched by these riots, it may never reach the heights it could have reached without this whole mess.

However, the country has managed to stand through this test. Yes, we lost a bunch of stuff, and yes, some people died - also, a lot of people were arrested, and there are now plenty of cases which are going to go to court once all the evidence has been piled together and collected. And I imagine that this is Zuma's equivalent to Trump having a crowd storming the Capitol; it seems much the same in execution, in aim, and in result.

--------------

As for Zuma himself, well, he did turn himself over to police before all of this kicked off. (I wonder to what extent he did that only so that he would have a really good alibi when the riots kicked off). He's (still) calling for the prosecutor assigned to his case to be recused, on what appears to be the basis that "he's presenting a case against me and therefore he's biased". That case is supposed to be heard today, and with Zuma literally in jail, you'd think there was no way he could really avoid turning up for his case.

You'd think wrong; Zuma hasn't given up yet.

See, due to the current COVID situation (i.e. Not Good), the case is going to be held virtually, over video link. And Zuma's lawyers are arguing that, since Zuma will not actually be present in the courtroom, his right to a fair trial is being denied.

Note, the plan is that Zuma will be there, by video link. His lawyers say that's not good enough. (And this sort of tactic is why he's avoided court for over a decade now.) He's just not giving up.

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2021 6:29 am 
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Could you spell out why Zuma still has die-hard supporters willing to riot for him? What do they see in this guy?

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2021 7:10 am 
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I don't know if I can. I do know that whatever he's using, it doesn't work on me.

I have guesses, and I can spell them out; but these are only guesses. From my observations, it looks like:

- Zuma is pretty much the most successful Zulu politician. Politics is by and large generally predominantly Xhosa; the caricatures of these two tribes are the fierce Zulu warrior and the sneaky Xhosa rogue (and you can see why the second caricature by and large makes a better politician, I'm sure) and apparently a large amount of his support base are fellow Zulus who don't much like the idea of a Xhosa (like Ramaphosa) being in charge of the country.

- Zuma has no formal education beyond a Standard Four (equivalent to grade six, if you're working entirely by grades). He might thus be seen as a champion of People Without Formal Education.

- Apparently he has amazing personal magnetism, one-on-one. (I wouldn't know, I've never personally met him).

- He's definitely been making extensive use of at least one, possibly several PR companies to improve his image. (Bell Pottinger literally collapsed trying to improve his image; he may have hired a replacement after that).

- He's been married, what, six, seven times? (Concurrently; yes, he's a polygamist, and yes, that's legal). And he's got a very large, very palatial homestead. A certain type of person might see him as an example to emulate, I guess?

- He's really very good at backroom and under-the-table deals. Not quite sure how this plays into it, maybe some people just like successful people, I guess?

.....and I think that's about all, really.

I'm forced to assume that whatever Zuma has going for him is very similar to whatever Trump has going for him, really. Both have die-hard supporters, and both seem to be able to provoke their supporters to riot. Mind you, I don't understand what Trump had going for him either, so that might not be a helpful comparison.

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Fri Aug 20, 2021 7:43 am 
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Zuma's still trying to avoid jail time.

His current major claims are: (a) He didn't benefit from all that corruption, the ANC (the political party he was in) did instead. And (b), he can't legally be imprisoned by international law because he wasn't convicted at a trial.

In support of (a), he's put out a formal request for the ANC's financial records at the time of some of the earlier corruption charges. Unfortunately, the ANC no longer has those records (they were apparently lost in a flood - in 2005). However, I can't help but notice that (as a former leader of the ANC) he almost certainly knew from the start that the particular records he asked for have been lost, so this seems likely to be just theatre. It won't help his case to point out how many corruption charges against him from after 2005 there are. It certainly won't help his case to point out that Shaik was convicted (in 2005) for, basically, facilitating bribes to Zuma, personally.

As far as (b) goes, this feels like an internet Just One Tip to Avoid Jail. See, the reason why he's in jail is because he kept refusing to turn up for legal proceedings - hence Contempt Of Court. It's as if he thinks that simply never walking into a courthouse makes him unimprisonable - since, if he's not at the trial, he can't be convicted. Even for missing the trial. Unfortunately for Zuma, that doesn't apply; he can't be imprisoned on criminal charges without a trial, true, but Contempt Of Court is a civil charge; this is the Court making sure that he can't avoid the trials for his criminal charges.

So,yeah,he's continually pushing, slowing things down, and stonewalling. No surprise there. Personally, I wonder if he's just trying to run out his fifteen-month Contempt Of Court sentence without ever letting any of the courts get far enough for a criminal conviction...

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 3:21 am 
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Fifteen months was clearly never going to happen.

Those who have been watching this saga for a while might remember that Schabir Shaik, convicted of basically arranging a bribe for Zuma back in 2005 (and jailed after running out of appeals in 2006) was given medical parole in early 2009, on the basis that he was apparently gravely ill and was not expected to live long.

...I should note, at this point, that Schabir Shaik appears to be still alive in 2021 (and is occasionally seen on golf courses or at luxury resorts).

Well, surprise surprise, guess what, apparently now Zuma has a doctor's note and qualifies for medical parole. To quote from the founder of the JG Zuma Foundation (quote in previous article): "for some reason authorities, particularly in the judiciary space, tend not to believe him."

...one doesn't need to look far to figure out why authorities tend to have a low level of trust in anything that Zuma says.

So. The NPA wanted a second opinion, asking for another set of doctors to please take a look. Apparently Zuma (backed by his army of lawyers) has comprehensively refused to allow any doctors except the ones with whom he has a long-standing relationship get any sort of a look at him at all, and claims that the NPA's request for a second opinion is besmirching the reputation of said doctors.

.....Zuma still has contacts pretty much everywhere. So I am entirely unsurprised at the idea that he has enough contacts in the right places to - somehow - make this go through. And to - somehow - end up going on 'medical parole' every time anyone tries to put him in jail.

The death penalty has been revoked over here, and I have no doubt that he can produce accountants who are willing to swear that there is absolutely no way that he can possibly afford to pay a fine. So..... is there anything that the courts can actually do to him, aside from annoying him?

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2021 8:36 am 
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So, Zuma may be out of jail on medical grounds (for the moment, at least - there are certainly people asking some very pointed questions about those medical grounds) but he's still trying to get the jail term rescinded as a whole.

His argument is simple. The constitution says that, in order to be jailed, you need to have a fair trial. Elsewhere, it defines a fair trial as one in which you are present and able to defend yourself. Now, the reason why Zuma was jailed (for contempt of court) was, basically, that he didn't turn up in court when he got the summons to do so (for his corruption trial).

So, he wasn't in court because he didn't turn up. He was sentenced to a few months in jail because he hadn't turned up. And now he's trying to claim that this sentence violates certain international treaties, because it was made while he wasn't there... because he didn't turn up. That is to say, he's trying to argue that so long as he continues to not turn up when Summonsed, he should never be sentenced for anything.

Needless to say, the court threw this idea right out. To quote one article:

Quote:
Former president Jacob Zuma can't claim to have been excluded from a court application that ended with him being jailed because he chose to be absent.


Of course, that's absolutely not the end of it. His followers already indicating an intent to go to the international criminal court and/or the human rights court where he will, presumably with a straight face, try to argue that as long as he never steps so much as a toe into a courtroom he should be immune to any and all punishment.

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2022 6:16 am 
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So. Let's talk about appeals for a moment.

Appeals are what you do after a court has returned a verdict and you think that the court got it wrong. Broadly speaking, it involves getting another court to look at the situation, hear what you have to say, and then decide whether or not to overturn the ruling.

Importantly, appeals are - generally - things that you do after the court has reached a verdict. Naturally, Zuma does not believe that these rules quite apply to him. Before the court has presented a verdict, he's already lodged an appeal against the prosecutor, apparently on the grounds that the prosecutor "is biased against him" (and leaked stuff about the case to the media).

I suspect that this "bias" may consist entirely of "he's prosecuting charges against me". I'm not quite sure on that, but I imagine a prosecutor who does anything short of immediately dropping all charges would get accused of "bias" by him. Either way, the courts are being sensible, and have basically told Zuma to save his appeals for the appropriate time, with said appropriate time being after there's actually a verdict to appeal in the first place.

...I suspect that Zuma's already got what he wanted from this appeal, though, which was to delay the actual trial for just a little bit longer... let's just say that it's astounding how many ways he's found over the past decade and a half(!!!) to delay that trial.

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2022 3:04 pm 
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So, Zuma should have been back at court today. It seems he was expected to argue that since he had an appeal against the prosecutor still going, his trial should be postponed (yet again). (Apparently he also filed papers - a while back - in which he pretty much argued that there wasn't a prosecutor in the country who had the standing to prosecute him, and it can therefore be expected that if he gets Mr. Downer fired then he'll complain about the next prosecutor, too, and so on ad infinitum).

However, it seems that instead of facing the court, Zuma has gone to face the doctors. Exactly what it is that's bought him to hospital hasn't been released yet, but it seems he's now claiming some sort of medical emergency - and if he ever does go to prison, he'd probably get out on medical grounds in no time.

Of course, the nature of a medical emergency can be questioned - we have not forgotten the case of Shabir Shaik, imprisoned for (basically) bribing Zuma, who was released from prison on medical parole in 2009 apparently on the grounds that he didn't have long to live, and who is as far as I know still alive to this day. (Note that Zuma has still not gone to prison for taking that bribe).

It's looking more and more like Zuma might continue to dodge his trial until he runs out the clock and dies of old age.

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2022 9:51 am 
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Huh. This is unexpected.

So. Remember the Gupta Brothers? They were the Indian businessmen who bribed Zuma like anything, were his 'good friends', and basically did the equivalent of attaching a vacuum cleaner to the South African economy and sucking all the money out.

We are still hurting from that... business. It turns out that when all the money that's supposed to be spent on upkeep of national infrastructure gets sucked out of the system instead, well, your infrastructure doesn't exactly survive well. (We're recovering, but it's a long haul).

When Zuma stopped being President, the Guptas promptly and very very quickly left the country, and have been spending the... almost five years since then keeping their heads down and trying very hard to stay out of extradition range.

Only it seems that they finally slipped up. Two of the Gupta Brothers have now been arrested in Dubai. There's some question about what exactly they've been arrested for - but apparently the procedure to extradite them back here has now begun.

Let's see how that goes...

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2022 11:07 am 
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Gotta catch them all.

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2022 2:34 pm 
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From what I've heard of Dubai it's very much a 'never seen a billionaire criminal they didn't like' kind of place. Making them feel unwelcome isn't very high on the government's 'to do' list; so unless these two Guptas have seriously offended exactly the wrong people, South Africa may not want to start holding it's breath just yet.

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 Post subject: Re: Zuma
 Post Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2022 7:21 pm 
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How many Gupta brothers are there?

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