The South African Sunday Times latest cartoon by Zapiro (follow the link to view) has caused great offense to the ANC.
The cartoon portrays Zuma (the ANC president) opening his belt while the lady Justice is held down by members of the tri-partite alliance.
The ANC, COSATU (the trade union movement), the ANC Youth League and the SAPC have all been outraged that the Sunday Times saw fit to publish the cartoon.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that since the ANC conference last December, and entirely new leadership was elected. The new leadership, together with the leaders of the other alliance parties has seen fit to publicly attack the judiciary on a number of occasions. Even the constitutional court has come under attack. The most frequent accusation is that of a "political agenda" whenever something does not go their way.
The conviction of fraudsters within the party was a result of a "political agenda" on the part of the judiciary and the Scorpions. The Scorpions are the South African equivalent of the FBI. The "New" ANC has seen fit to place the disbanding of the Scorpions at the top of their list of priorities. Why? The Scorpions were responsible for investigating the corruption case against Zuma, fraud against Tony Yengeni (he was convicted) and for uncovering the entire Travelgate scam. The Travelgate scam involved many MP's.
They fraudulently claimed huge sums of money for travel that did not take place and shared the proceeds with a travel agency that helped to facilitate this fraud. The MPs were let off with a fine following an admission of guilt. All have kept their parliamentary jobs and are now part of the new ANC leadership.
Jacob Zuma has been implicated in a number of offences including accepting bribes while negotiating the arms deal. He has thus far tried to prevent the evidence being used and has attempted to stop the trial through one court application after another. He still has more up his sleeve. He is intent on stopping the trial.
Zuma's allies have also tried to prevent the trial from taking place. They claim that it is a political trial. The leader of the ANC Youth League has threatened to kill to prevent the trial. He has promised to eliminate the counter-revolutionary forces. These counter revolutionary forces include the judiciary.
Unfortunately the cartoon is very apt. Carl Niehaus - a former ANC MP has spoken out against the new order. He finds the new trend within the ANC - of viewing parliament and the judiciary as tools to carry out party policy - as worrying. It is the first step for the party to self-destruct.
The ANC has long been a party of high integrity. The leadership had morals and values. The new leadership does not.
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