Nkandla ruling a victory for our country

Yesterday’s Constitutional Court ruling on the Nkandla matter is a victory for South Africa – and chief among that, the primacy of the constitution. With the benefit of hindsight, the outcome could never be in doubt – much like finally seeing the emperor without any clothes.

It took 11 judges, many of whom were appointed during President Jacob Zuma’s tenure, led by a man who was Zuma’s personal appointment and widely derided at the time, to remind us that no one is above the promise bequeathed to us by our icon Nelson Mandela and his fellow freedom fighters.

Zuma now faces a nightmarish 105 days: 60 days of trepidation to find out just what it is he will have to pay back of the estimated R200 million spent irregularly on his homestead, and then, a mere 45 days to come up with the money.

If the allegations of state capture are as real as some of the most strident conspiracy theorists would have us believe, the key question is whether Zuma’s financial benefactors will be as keen to further invest in a man whose political nadir began yesterday.

It is of course a financial benefactor who started this whole sorry saga in the first place more than 10 years ago, and with it the spectre that refuses to go away of corruption charges, should the president be successfully impeached or indeed step down from office. This is the one assurance that he does have.

There is no assurance whatsoever that he might not be recalled by his own party, given that his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, was recalled on the grounds that he had brought the party into disrepute.

Indeed, with the exception of his HIV-Aids position, Mbeki’s “sins” may pale into insignificance with the suborning of a grossly inflated cabinet of many lackeys to protect the vanity of one man, or the subversion of the National Assembly to do the very same thing.

Not only was there interference with the inviolable mandate of a Chapter Nine institution, but a very real attempt to derail it by creating parallel processes.

Yesterday was an incredible vindication for the 11 men and women who stand as the guardians of our constitution – and a particularly poignant moment for Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, who has resolutely proved his critics and detractors wrong, and is fast shaping up as one of the most courageous chief justices South Africa has had. Let us not forget his meeting with the executive last year in which he reminded the president of his responsibilities.

Of course, the one person who could perhaps feel the happiest is the woman who has been egregiously vilified, and indeed victimised by craven members of the ruling party, for her determination to speak truth to power.

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s courage and conviction is matched only by the grace that she showed yesterday at a time when even the most angelic could be forgiven for a moment of crowing. Yet she did not.

She will step down from office in a few months’ time, leaving South Africa a much better place than when she first took office, with a phenomenal pair of shoes for her successor to fill.

This is a big day for South Africa in a country where big days are almost the norm. We now have a president who is not only, increasingly, finding his power constrained by his own loyalists, but by the highest court in the land in what was the humiliating legal equivalent of a public slap in the face.

The next few days will be very telling, not just for Zuma, but the entire nation.