Some thoughts after 2008 (2)

2 -- The political turmoil in South Africa

The ANC has been the majority party in South Africa for more than a decade. There are at least a dozen opposition parties, most of them only having a few hundred thousand votes in the last elections. Only DA (Democratic Alliance) got more than a million votes. At the end of 2007 the ANC held a convention in Polokwane where they elected Jacob Zuma as president of the ANC, which actually meant that the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, didn't have the support of his party anymore. In September 2008 he was removed from his office by ANC, but Jacob Zuma couldn't step in as the country's President, since he is not a Member of the Parliament. There is a strong part of ANC wanting mr Zuma as the next President of SA, to the extent that Julius Malema, head of the ANCYL (ANC Youth League), publicly stated that he "will kill for Zuma". I think very many people were alarmed by that, and also by the fact that Zuma didn't reproach Malema for that statement.

Not long after mr Mbeki stepped down many of his former high-rank supporters resigned from their positions and started a new party: COPE, Congress of the People. I think that is a big step towards a real democracy in this country. During the last few months many hundreds of top-level people have resigned and joined COPE to the dismay of ANC.

Elections will probably be in April this year and it will be a thriller!!!

And on top of that, the SCA (Supreme Court of Appeal) overturned a lower court's decision to stop the legal proceedings against Jacob Zuma for corruption, fraud, raketeering and money-laundring. Zuma and his legal team have been busy for several years with legal technicalities and appeals to save him from having go to court. But now it seems as if he will finally have to. According to the Common Law, everybody is innocent until a court of law has pronounced him guilty. But why not rather go to court and let the court and clear your name if you are innocent?