Breach of the Constitution – SONA 2015

 

In a wordy television interview broadcast on SABC on Sunday night, President Jacob Zuma tried to justify his Government’s non-action on the many promises he has made in previous State of the Nation Addresses, by saying that the challenges don’t change, so the plans that Government has to meet them should also not change.  That is precisely the problem.  The ANC Government has dozens of plans, some of them even seemingly not too bad.  However, its record of implementing those plans is abysmally poor.  It seems that only the worst ideas get implemented, ideas like changing the education system, closing the technical training colleges, terminating the apprenticeship system that works so well in other countries to convert the badly educated youth into usable citizens, forcing newly-qualified doctors to undertake compulsory medical service, which has driven so many of the bright new doctors abroad, to non-Communist countries and forced the long-suffering public to accept the tender ministrations of Cuban-trained doctors who, in the words of a knowledgeable medical expert, are not as good as the Senior Nurses used to be, and many other bungles.  None of the plans with any potential to improve the standard of living of South Africans ever seem to get off the starting blocks.

One of the explanations related to the collapsing electricity supply from Eskom.  The President explained that we do not have a crisis.  “We have challenges, and we have plans,” he stated, with his usual smirk, between throat-clearings and spectacle pushes (both signs, according to body language experts, of untruth or embarrassment).  Perhaps the President has not noticed that blackouts for four to six hours up to three times per week, on a largely unplannable basis, is in fact a crisis of serious proportions, with a direct impact on GDP and, ultimately, even on the employment prospects of the young man or woman studying for his or her Matric in a mud hut in the Eastern Cape.  The President’s explanation went on, in many, many words, to explain that the Government has been involved in signing contracts with several countries which have the nuclear technology as a way of determining what they have to offer, prior to undertaking a procurement that will, after the event, be disclosed to the public in an open and transparent way.  Just like the deal between the ANC and Shell SA, after that company has almost certainly been chosen and, probably contracted, to supply natural gas from Karoo fracking operations to power the Eskom standby generators!  The President carefully avoided touching on the contract signed in September 2014 by Minister Tina Joemat-Pieterson and the Russian State Nuclear Energy body for the supply of technology by that body exclusively for twenty years, a contract that the State has strenuously denied, but which has been published on the Russian Embassy website.  The denials came after questions were expressed by the public, asking what commission the President or the ANC has been promised for the R111 billion deal.  The careful avoidance by the President of that issue must raise the question again, after the lengthy record of shady deals and under-the-counter hand-outs of which the present Government has been credibly accused.  The President, in an after the SONA debacle, went to some lengths to accuse the Press of biased reporting, particularly relating to the Nkandla affair, which, he said, had been clarified by the reports of three Government bodies clearing him of any blame in the matter.  Unfortunately, he failed to discuss the finding of the Public Protector, the only responsible and unbiased body to have spoken in this affair, which unequivocally found the President to have benefited unduly from the upgrades to his private home.  It is clear that the furore that has erupted in Parliament on two occasions that every non-ANC Party would prefer to believe a Constitutionally-established and protected body over the President’s stooges.

In the interview, the President went to great lengths, with many words, to explain that South Africa can never be a racist or tribalistic society.  One wonders whether he is aware that the tribal Chief system is entrenched in the laws, or that the Black Empowerment legislation is very specific in its intention to replace Whites with Blacks!

The Nkandla affair resulted in armed Policemen entering the Chamber in direct and flagrant breach of the Constitution to expel the EFF, including Members of Parliament of that Party who had not participated in the disruption of the SONA presentation.  Zuma’s declaration that he and the Speaker knew that the EFF planned to raise the issue during his Address, and were forced to make preparations for it, made it abundantly clear that the State President, supposedly the ultimate protector of the Constitution and the democracy under it, planned to have the armed Policemen rush into Parliament in the greatest single demonstration of the ANC’s disregard of the Constitution and the basic principles of Democracy in the past twenty years.  That, apart from the numerous other transgressions of laws, disqualifies Jacob Zuma from the position of President.  It is a reflection of the worst kind on the ANC, represented by Zuma and the joint Chairs of the Joint Sitting (the Speaker of Parliament and the Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces) as well as on the senior members of the ANC, who cannot claim innocence or lack of knowledge of the planned breach of the Constitution, and who continue to support Zuma in his leadership of the Party.  One can only ask what participation they have in the benefits from Zuma and his dealings, or what information Zuma has about them that leads them to continue to support a man who is obviously wrong for the country, and who is obviously leading the country towards a state of crisis in which all thinking citizens will revolt.

But even before that breach of the Constitution, the cellphone signal from the Chamber had been disrupted, another breach of the Constitution, and the Speaker responded in ordering that the disruption be discontinued only after three demands had been made by the Opposition.  Democratic Alliance supporters were arrested by the Police before the President arrived, and driven around in a Police car for two hours before they were released, without being charged, while others in the same crowd, behaving in the same way, were not subjected to any action.

The signs are clear.  The Executive is acting to suppress any effective opposition.  As one Democratic Alliance member said after SONA, “What is next?  Will we have the Military entering Parliament to ensure that nothing is said or done that might be contrary to the wishes of the President or the ANC?”  The answer to that is perilously clear.  If urgent and positive action (never a characteristic of the ANC) is not taken to steer our young democracy towards the ideals espoused by Nelson Mandela, the next small step will be an imposition of control measures to suppress the rights of free speech, followed by more rigorous measures. 

South Africa is teetering on the brink of a civil war.