EDITORIAL: Zuma’s bid to send journalist to gulag is a fool’s errand and political charade

On Monday former president Jacob Zuma, seeming assuredly healthy, arrived at the high court in Pietermaritzburg. For someone disinclined to stand within the four walls of a courthouse Zuma was noticeably jolly.  

His day began flanked by doting cheerleaders and ended with an address to a modest-sized crowd. Among his backers was lawyer Dali Mpofu on a break from defending Busisiwe Mkhwebane at the parliamentary probe into her (mis)conduct.

Zuma’s daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla wrote triumphantly after court “president Zuma is back like he never left” and shared a video of him delivering a spirited rendition of umshini wami replete with a shimmy, shake and jive.

Mzwanele Manyi, leading actor in Zuma’s state capture tragedy and gabbling mouthpiece of his foundation, lent support. He was joined by former SAA board chair Dudu Myeni, a delinquent director who earlier this year pleaded guilty to naming an anonymous witness at the Zondo inquiry and paid a fine.

Former Umkhonto we Sizwe bigwig Carl Niehaus made sure to let his Twitter flock know he accompanied Zuma in and out of court. “The shoe is now on the other foot! It’s a good feeling!” said a buoyant Niehaus.

For once Zuma seemed happy to be in court, likely as he brought the criminal case this time. His legal tack was manifest again. Zuma now stands in a figurative Stalingrad, his favourite legal gambit, hell-bent on condemning a journalist to the gulags for doing her job.

Zuma is criminally prosecuting journalist Karyn Maughan for citing his doctor’s letter he included in a court filing, once it became a matter of public record. The letter, which Maughan quoted in its brevity, reveals little about Zuma’s mysterious corporeal maladies.

His second target is state prosecutor Billy Downer, whom Zuma has already tried and failed to have recused from his arms deal trial, for allegedly giving Maughan undue access to the letter.

After he reluctantly stepped down as president in 2018, Zuma granted Maughan a sit-down interview at his Nkandla homestead. How his posture has changed now that it’s expedient to do so and may delay his own, live criminal case.

A former president has taken on a seasoned scribe, who — it can hardly be coincidence — has covered litigation on the arms deal over nearly 20 years. Zuma is implicated in alleged fraud, corruption, money laundering and tax evasion. Maughan knows the topic better than most.

Recently, she published a book on SA’s perilous flirtation with an unaffordable nuclear deal. It covers aspects of Zuma’s personal and political life, including proximity to “friend” and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He, in other words, likely has several axes to grind against Maughan, not to mention the SA press.

Investigative journalism was instrumental in exposing with molecular detail his, the Guptas’ and others’ mouldering ways. Zuma’s spurious criminal prosecution of a reporter has greater and graver implications than might appear at first glance. It is an affront on a vital institution.

The matter has been postponed until February. But Zuma, newly heartened after the end of his 15-month prison term for flouting a Constitutional Court order, milked the opportunity for all it was worth to drive a political agenda.

He has shown his sheer disdain for the judiciary. Zuma offended his oath of office at several turns in two terms, all but unchecked by his own party and the current president who sat to his right. Time and again, this case included, Zuma has demonstrated his disregard for constitutional SA’s supreme law.

Now he has bluntly targeted the fourth estate, journalism, and used the opportunity as a springboard for his own political leaps and bounds (perhaps, more accurately those of his allies) before the ANC’s 54th elective conference in December. It is a fool’s errand.

Zuma’s elder, former president Nelson Mandela, said in his 1994 speech to the International Press Institute congress: “I have often said that the media are a mirror through which we can see ourselves as others perceive us, warts, blemishes and all. The ANC has nothing to fear from criticism. I can promise you, we will not wilt under close scrutiny.” Not so for Jacob Zuma.