Zuma loses “formal authority”- what implications?
__________________________________________
Professor Hugh Corder, who has been writing on public law for over 30 years remarks on the Nkandla judgment:
“Whatever happens, [the president’s] formal authority has been irrevocably weakened by his misconduct highlighted in this judgment, not to mention all his other indiscretions committed over the past 15 years. In such circumstances, desperate measures may be resorted to, and we can expect some form of backlash, including further questioning of judicial authority.”
What does it mean that the President’s formal authority has been irrevocably weakened? It seems that a case can be made that he has negated the basis for occupying the office of president. Yet he is likely to still continue to occupy it.
It is true that it can be argued that political legitimacy is conferred through the polls and that the majority party may still continue to accord him that authority. But over the last 22 years no president has so clearly held office with a disjuncture between his legal standing, with the legal basis for his authority so clearly impugned. This must surely be troubling to some in the ANC leadership, though cowardice and greed would appear to have taken so firm a hold on most of them that they will let things be. I hope I am wrong.
But even if Zuma does go it has been said many times that the problem does not lie in Zuma alone and the court pointed to the complicity of others, notably the National Assembly, in his illegal actions.
But even if all these are impugned, if wrongdoing is ascribed to Zuma and all MPs, did the problems of the ANC and of South Africa start with Zuma, as the MK generals/leaders seem to imply, when they refer to “our glorious movement”, as if there is simply a need to return to an uncomplicated past? Was there not patronage and also cases of corruption before Zuma, even before 1994 and do we not need to seek a remedy that gets to the actual root of the problems, not simply by addressing particular individuals in leadership at one or other time?