/ 17 October 2008

Mbeki dares Zuma (again)

Stop calling me your friend and comrade in public while stabbing daggers in my back.

That’s former president Thabo Mbeki’s message to African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma in papers filed with the Constitutional Court this week.

Mbeki is seeking leave to appeal against Judge Chris Nicholson’s judgement in Zuma’s corruption case, which suggested the Cabinet under Mbeki interfered in the investigation and prosecution of Zuma.

Mbeki filed his replying affidavit on Tuesday, attacking Zuma’s arguments that the court should dismiss the former president’s application to have his name cleared.

Zuma’s representations focused on Mbeki’s failure to respond to allegations of a political conspiracy, stating that Mbeki had ample opportunity to address Zuma’s concerns in the past.

Mbeki thinks differently. Whenever Zuma’s court papers involve Mbeki in the alleged conspiracy against him, the former president responds that Zuma never accused him in person.

“[Zuma] informed me that he believes there were external forces, acting together with some South Africans, that were intent on ensuring that this political career is compromised. He at no stage suggested that I was part of such forces.

“In his closing address to the 52nd national conference of the ANC held as recently as December 2007, [Zuma] referred to me as his comrade, friend and brother,” Mbeki says.

He attached Zuma’s inaugural speech at Polokwane to his court papers. It reads: “Comrades, I am called upon to lead this multiclass organisation and ruling party, succeeding Cde Thabo Mbeki, a comrade, friend and brother. I have known and worked with Cde Mbeki for over 30 years. I must confess I never thought that the two of us would one day compete for the same position in the ANC! However, contesting positions does not make us enemies.”

Mbeki also refers to a joint statement by him and Zuma in September 2005 after a meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) in which they affirmed their trust in each other and in the ANC.

The references are a response to Zuma’s charges that Mbeki must have been aware of his concern that the country’s president interfered with suspended national director of public prosecutions Vusi Pikoli’s decision to charge Zuma with corruption.

The affidavit (PDF)

Read Thabo Mbeki’s full affidavit

“Of the media reports that did come to my attention in whatever format, I did not believe that [Zuma] had made the vexatious allegations attributed to him. This is so because of the statements that [Zuma] and I made jointly in this regard.”

On the issue of his “unfair” dismissal of Zuma as deputy president of the country, Mbeki is flabbergasted that Zuma previously accepted his decision, but now regards it as part of the conspiracy to prevent him from succeeding Mbeki as president.

Mbeki also refers to an ANC NEC statement of November 2005 that confirmed there was no political conspiracy against Zuma within the ANC.

In his papers, Mbeki takes another swipe at Nicholson, accusing him of disregarding the principle of the separation of powers by implying Mbeki did not appoint a judicial commission of inquiry into the arms deal “out of favouritism”.