BRUCE WHITFIELD: Jacob Zuma is a mumpsimus

A mumpsimus is someone who insists they are right, despite clear evidence they are not. It’s a 16th-century word which is out of common usage but needs to make a comeback in a world that desperately needs to interrogate the baseless statements of a growing number of its elected leaders and those trying to reform their damaged public image. 

Jacob Zuma attempted once again at the weekend to reconstruct his battered legacy and reinvent the facts around his presidency by, among other things, claiming that his successor is corrupt and that there was no load-shedding during the final three years of his presidency. He also tried, again, to discredit the Zondo commission, which recommended that his role in state capture be further probed by the appropriate authorities. The net is tightening around Zuma and his acolytes, and desperate times call for desperate measures.

The former president’s relationship with the truth has always been tenuous, at best. Even when in office he would seek to shape the narrative to suit him, and his latest attempts at revisionist history, while creative, are easily dismissed with facts. The Zondo commission (which he established) was illegal, he said, and foreign interests were seeking to take over the running of the economy. He also delivered a range of other distortions designed to shift attention from his own legal issues and further muddy the political waters ahead of the ANC’s December elective conference.

The last thing he wants is for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s reform efforts, as slow and frustrating as they are, to continue, as he is finally running out of options to face corruption allegations related to the arms deal, which 17 years ago saw his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik convicted of corruption. While fraud can be committed by an individual, corruption requires at least one counterparty. As one half of the relationship was already convicted on the evidence, it is difficult to see how Zuma can escape the same fate. It’s little wonder that he wants ace prosecutor Billy Downer off his case. Not only is Downer tenacious, he is also the one person sufficiently equipped to secure a conviction based on already accepted evidence in the Shaik matter.

As for the apparent ailment that saw Zuma released early from prison following his contempt conviction, he was in fine fettle on Saturday and showed no obvious signs that he was facing his imminent demise — usually a prerequisite for medical parole.

In Zuma’s world, his critics are agents of foreign states paid to discredit him as the last bastion in the battle against foreign intervention in the state. His social media strategy is to portray himself as the victim and the only person who fully understands the woes of the country and — despite the fact that he was at the helm of government for nearly a decade — the only one able to set it on a recovery track. He has even expressed his willingness to serve as chair of the party that removed him from office.

For the mumpsimus, the only thing that matters is that you stick to your version of events because, as propagandist Joseph Goebbels noted, the more you repeat a lie, the more likely it is to be accepted as fact.

Zuma’s foundation constantly seeks to cloud the truth about his legal travails and has perfected the dark art of spin-doctoring to levels last witnessed in the darkest days of Bell Pottinger’s attempts to sow dissent in the country during the dying days of the Zuma administration.

The JG Zuma Foundation counts among its most active contributors the gifted communicator Mzwanele Manyi, who regularly signs off on the statements it issues. Manyi issued a provocative statement at the time of Zuma’s conviction and jailing for contempt of court in which he ably demonstrated how you can tell a bald-faced lie without stating a single untruth. The secret of great spin is to not lie. The skill lies in the ability to position the facts in such a way as to convey a message which deceives the reader to believe it to be true. It’s not lying per se — but it amounts to the same thing.

Take this one: “President Jacob Zuma. A freedom fighter who has become the first prisoner of the Constitutional Court. Jailed without trial.”

It is factual.

Fact 1: “President Jacob Zuma”. He was president and if he wants to keep the honorific, be my guest. It’s an American convention, but what the heck.

Fact 2: “A freedom fighter”. Absolutely. He was jailed on Robben Island by the National Party government for his activities against the apartheid state.

Fact 3: “The first prisoner of the Constitutional Court”. Emotive but accurate. He is the only person ever jailed by the court.

Fact 4: “Jailed without trial”. Correct. But no trial is required for a contempt conviction.

Put together, “President Jacob Zuma. A freedom fighter who has become the first prisoner of the Constitutional Court. Jailed without trial” is a deliberate construct aimed at obfuscation and promotes the victim image Zuma has sought to portray through his legal travails.

Zuma and those around him know that he is in deep trouble. The only feasible way out of the mess he finds himself in is if there is a change of ANC leadership and a toppling of the Ramaphosa administration with a president empathetic to his self-made quandary. Not only did the Constitutional Court find Zuma guilty of contempt for failing to appear before the Zondo commission, which he established in January 2018, shortly before he resigned as president, it also found that he was complicit in multiple cases of undermining the state and should be further investigated for the role he played in the breakdown of key state institutions.

It’s not clear whether Zuma genuinely believes his carefully constructed statements and is in denial over the destruction his presidency enabled of key state institutions and entities such as Eskom, Transnet, Denel, the South African Post Office and countless others, or whether he is simply untruthful and will do anything he can to distract from his inevitable day with justice over the corruption allegations he is so desperate to avoid answering to.

There is no shortage of irony in many of Zuma’s statements on Saturday, but this one stands out in particular: “Suffice to say that your president has committed treason. No president should conduct private business while in office. Our country’s problems are too big for a president who is busy hustling on the side.”