Former President Jacob Zuma could be back in prison by Friday, 25 November 2022, and murmurs circulating on social media suggest we may bare witness to the shocking riots of July 2021.
Jacob Zuma prison deadline: Is a shutdown on the cards? – Here’s everything we know
On Monday, 21 November 2022, the Supreme Court of Appeals (SCA) sent shockwaves across the political sphere when it determined that Msholozi’s medical parole was unlawfully granted by ex-Corrections boss Arthur Fraser.
SCA judge Tati Makgoka, after considering submissions from Zuma, Fraser, the Democratic Alliance (DA), the Helen Suzman Foundation, Afriforum, as well as the medical parole advisory board, re-affirmed the Pretoria High Court’s declaration that “the time Mr Zuma was out on medical parole should not be considered for the fulfilment of his sentence of 15 months imposed by the Constitutional Court.”
Considering Zuma was sent to prison on 4 July 2021 and released on medical parole two months later on 6 September 2021, the SCA’s ruling suggests the former president still has over a year left of his sentence to serve at Escourt prison.
In a statement, the Jacob Zuma Foundation wholly dismissed the SCA ruling, claiming Msholozi had completed his sentence on 7 October 2022.
“This is an act of injustice. It is nothing but an exercise in cruelty and degrading punishment,” the foundation wrote in a scathing statement.
The final determination of Zuma’s fate lies in the hands of corrections head Makgothi Thobakgale. The SCA made it abundantly clear that only the national commissioner of correctional services has the power to recognise Zuma’s medical parole as time served, albeit, under the lens of justice, the conditional release was obtained unlawfully.
The DA, however, insists the former president ought to be booted back to jail no later than 17:00 on Friday, 25 November 2022. In a letter to Thobakgale, the political party’s lawyers demanded that Zuma be returned to Escourt prison to serve the remainder of his sentence, “by arrest if necessary.”
However, not only has the corrections department remained mum on its decision, but Zuma seems unwilling to yield to the SCA’s ruling. The former president’s daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, on Tuesday, published a flyer on social media showing Zuma scheduled to give a keynote address at a memorial day rally in Illovo River, KZN, on Sunday, 27 November 2022.
In fact, Zuma has scheduled political engagements the entire week ahead of the party’s national elective conference later this year.
As the time ticks on toward the DA’s deadline, murmurs on social media indicate the possibility of unrest should Zuma be hauled to prison.
South Africa’s National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (NATJOINTS), fully aware of the 2021 riots that claimed hundreds of lives and resulted in widescale looting that cost the local economy billions in losses, confirmed, in a statement quoted by News24 that plans are already in place to respond to any spurts of unrest that may erupt from Zuma’s impending imprisonment.
Here are the latest images and videos of Zuma in the lead-up to Friday’s deadline: