So the NPA hey

Wow. The National Prosecuting Authority is supposed to be announcing today its decision re. the Zuma charges. This is a really big day in our country's history. Who would want to be Mokotedi Mpshe? Will he drop the charges or not?

He will drop the charges. Duh.

It concerns me. Not because I find Zuma distasteful or unfit for office. Whatever man - most politicians are rubbish manipulative unscrupulous people who had to resort to politics when every other respectable profession kicked them out.

No, this whole thing concerns me because South Africa has quite clearly, in the space of 5 short years, developed a class of untouchables. Everyone with any sort of power and something significant to lose now has a good few skeletons in the closet. So no-one rolls over on anyone else, and corruption becomes something that is not just tolerated but is a means of political survival. The dirtiest sit on top doling out enough cream to keep enough powerful people on sides. Those perceived to be clean or incorruptible are forced out to let the rest of the dirty little monkeys carry on throwing their poo at South Africa's institutions.

Maybe Zuma only came to understand this recently. Maybe his lawyers have been delaying for so long because they needed more time to dig up more dirt on people like Comrade Thabo. Maybe.

I think Zuma has always understood the rules of the game. I think his difficulty was that the NPA's top brass changed after he was booted out of government. The old guys (mainly Ngcuka) were as tainted as anyone by the arms deal, meaning that Zuma would never get into court (why else would Ngcuka claim a prima facie case against Zuma but then refuse to proceed with laying any charges? Look, he's guilty, but I don't want to have all his dirty laundry aired in court, because some of it's mine.) .

The new guys (mainly Pikoli) probably were mostly clean, and probably did have a genuine desire to implement the law. Which is why they never got anywhere, and why Pikoli was eventually axed for no (objectively) good reason. Who axed him? Mbeki. Why? Because Mbeki was worried about what might emerge if Pikoli's investigations, which were connecting to the arms deal all sorts of dots that no-one thought possible, continued.

So here we are waiting for the NPA's decision. It has been receiving 'representations' from Zuma's lawyers for about 2 weeks now. We already know their main argument: that they have evidence implicating lots of other powerful people in the arms deal fiasco. The NPA should simply take the evidence and open lots of new dockets. The NPA should be able to do so, since the current NPA leadership should (I hope) have no skeletons of its own to worry about (especially none connected to the arms deal). But I guess there's more to it than that. Can you imagine the chaos when Zuma, by then sitting state president, has to appear in court this August? The country would go nuts.

Seen in this light the COPE sideshow is slightly more interesting than being completely boring. Lekota (defense minister after Modise), George (Lekota's deputy), Shilowa et al either didn't get any arms deal pork, or are confident that a court wouldn't find them guilty of anything related to the arms deal-Zuma saga. If not there's no way they would have run off saying all those bad things about the ANC and Zuma. Or maybe they did and were prepared to do the right thing when the NPA came a-knocking? Ya, not really.

I really really really hate what the the arms deal has done to (political) South Africa, and I will blame Mbeki for all of it unless he writes a bladdy book telling me that it was someone else's fault. Such a book would be a super best seller, no doubt.