Serving the People
Is it becoming clearer to you that politics is no longer about “serving the people”, oh there is a huge amount of talk about serving the people but when it comes down to it it’s all about self interest, each politician’s grubby hands grabbing as much as he can. I am going to leave this statement as a very general statement as it seems to me that none are complaining about the exorbitant percs.
Politicians don’t know who the people are anymore. Come on, they live behind bullet proof glass in their chaufered cars with security everywhere.
Who else has a president that…
- Has had 4 wives
- Who has a Judicial Review pending
- Who only has a Standard 3 or Grade 5
- Who is surrounded by quite as much controversy
Wives
Jacob Zuma is a self-proclaimed polygamist and has been married at least four times.
1. Gertrude Sizakele Khumalo, whom he met in 1959 and married shortly after his release from prison in 1973. She lives at his home at Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal. They have no children.
2. Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, with whom he had four children, but whom he divorced in June 1999.
3. Kate Mantsho, from Mozambique, with whom he had five children. She committed suicide on 8 December 2000.
4. Nompumelelo Ntuli (MaNtuli), the mother of two of his children, married on 8 January 2008. Ntuli, born 1975, is a resident of KwaMaphumulo near Stanger and has two children with Zuma — Thandisiwe, born 2002, and Sinqobile, born February 2006.
Fiancées
1. Zuma paid lobola to the clan of Thobeka Stacey Mabhija, with whom he has two children, in 2007. The second was born in October 2007. Ms. Mabhija grew up in Umlazi, where she matriculated at Umlazi Commercial High School. She has worked at Standard Bank, Ithala, Cell C and SA Homeloans in La Lucia.
2. Zuma paid 10 cattle as lobola for Swazi Princess Sebentile Dlamini in 2002.
3. Lobola has been paid for Bongi Ngema, with whom he has a 3-year-old son
He reportedly has 18 children, including one resulting from an affair with Minah Shongwe, sister of Judge Jeremiah Shongwe, who asked to be recused from Mr. Zuma’s rape trial because of the liaison. She has a son, Edward, 30, with Mr. Zuma.
Judicial Review
The DA filed the application for a judicial review of the decision to withdraw fraud, corruption, racketeering and money laundering charges against Zuma early in April.
DA leader Helen Zille maintained that the NPA decision was “political stage management disguised as legal procedure” and that the NPA had caved in to political pressure and had “thrown the law-book out of the window”.
“Zuma has not been acquitted. Only a court of law can do that. Only a court of law can examine and cross-examine the evidence that the [National Director of Public Prosecutions] submitted in mitigation of the decision to drop the charges.
“And only a court of law can determine whether the decision itself was lawful or not.
“The DA believes a judicial review is the only way to ensure that justice takes it course,” she said at the time.
The DA contended in court papers that the decision was not rational and was in fact unlawful and unconstitutional.
The NPA has maintained that the DA did not have the legal standing to bring the application and that the decision not to prosecute Zuma was not reviewable.
Zuma has faced significant legal challenges. He was charged with rape in 2005, but was later acquitted. In addition, he fought a long legal battle over allegations of racketeering and corruption, after his financial advisor, Schabir Shaik, was convicted of corruption and fraud. On 6 April 2009, the National Prosecuting Authority decided to drop the charges citing political interference.
Zuma — his middle name, by the way, means “one who laughs with you whilst endangering you”!