Faizel Patel – 01/072021
North West Professor and political analyst Andre Duvenhage says sending a former president to prison is a historical and watershed decision for South African politics.
Professor Duvenhage was speaking to Radio Islam after the Constitutional Court sentenced former president Jacob Zuma to 15 months imprisonment after finding him guilty of contempt of court.
Zuma has been given five days to hand himself over to police to start serving his sentence failing which may result in his arrest.
Zuma’s supporters and MK veterans have already started setting up barriers around his Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu-Natal while his son Edward says he would die before allowing his father to be taken off to jail.
Professor Duvenhage says he believes that Zuma may escape his troubles.
“In the first place I think I he attends court for three or four months, he may be due for parole, that’s the one reason. The second one, if he can provide a medical certificate ala Schabir Shaik, I think he may go into house arrest and not be in jail and he can sit at Nkandla throughout the time as well.”
Duvenhage says there is definitely going to be a mobilization of people who support Zuma.
He says Zuma may not hand himself over and will wait for the police to arrest him.
“I cannot see that his supporters will by any means be able to stop the police from arresting the president. But he would like to get as much publicity from it as possible, therefore he stage the scene and you can expect there will be a prominent audience. I’m expecting faces like Ace Magashule, Supra Mahumapelo and a few others to be and support him, their president, not to talk about Carl Niehaus himself.”
Duvenhage says the arrest and imprisonment of Zuma is definitely going to impact negatively on the African National Congress (ANC).
Listen to the interview with Professor Andre Duvenhage
0 Comments