Johannesburg: A South African court dismissed a long-running corruption case against the opposition leader Julius Malema on Tuesday, handing a victory to one of President Jacob G. Zuma’s most strident critics.
The High Court in Polokwane, in Malema’s home province of Limpopo, threw out the charges because of excessive delays in trying the case, which began three years ago. State prosecutors had asked on Monday for another postponement because a co-defendant was ill.
“Starting from 2012 up to 2015 is too long a time for any person to have a sword hanging over his head, and I’m not willing to subject the accused to that particular ordeal once more,” Judge George Mothle said in dismissing the case.
State prosecutors could still decide to refile charges, which relate to a $4.1 million road construction contract awarded to a company with ties to Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, the country’s second largest opposition party. Members of the group, who dress in red berets and jackets, aggressively attack Zuma and the governing African National Congress in parliament.
The court did not acquit Malema, nor did it delve into the details of the charges that he improperly profited from the contract. Critics have said the case was politically motivated.
The decision on Tuesday was an embarrassment for Zuma and the governing party, which have been locked in a political duel with Malema for years. Malema, a charismatic leader, was once the head of the ANC’s youth wing and a strong backer of Zuma, but he was expelled for provocative actions like publicly singing a song called Shoot the Boer that a South African court banned as hate speech. He was expelled from the ANC in 2012 , and resurrected his political career the following year by forming his new party, which calls for the nationalization of land and draws strong support from South Africa’s impoverished and disaffected youth.
Outside the courthouse, Malema told reporters that prosecutors “want postponement after postponement, so that I become a citizen in South Africa with a permanent dark cloud over my head”.
Malema said that he was looking forward to appearing in parliament later this week. He has been among the most tenacious and vocal critics of Zuma’s spending practices, including tens of millions of dollars of public money spent on improvements to his private homestead, Nkandla. Zuma has rejected calls by the public and the country’s public protector for him to repay some of the money.
“On Thursday, I will be in parliament,” Malema said. “Zuma will know us better because we are free.”
Malema, who has described himself as the voice of the poor, has long been dogged by questions about his lavish lifestyle, including expensive houses, cars and clothing. He has defended his ostentation by saying that he cannot inspire the poor by living in a shack.
In the national elections last year, Malema’s party won just over 6 per cent of the vote, placing a distant third behind the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, with 22 percent, and the ANC with 62 per cent.
But because of Malema’s high profile, his party has outsize influence in South African political discourse, and that influence may increase with Tuesday’s ruling.
“Politically, this is good for Malema and the EFF because it does reinforce the perception that our prosecuting authorities did not go to court with a watertight case, but did so in support of a political agenda,” said Aubrey Matshiqi, a political analyst at the Helen Suzman Foundation, a private pro-democracy group in South Africa. “It would have been deeply satisfying for the president, I assume, to see Malema in a yellow or orange uniform.”
Matshiqi said Malema will now “become even more bullish” in trying to paint Zuma as corrupt and the ANC as a corrupt party unmoored from its past as a defender of the black masses. That perception, already widespread in South Africa, could hurt the ANC in municipal elections next year, he said.
With the governing party’s popularity already showing declines in recent elections, Matshiqi said, “Malema’s actions from this point onward may deepen that image crisis for the ANC.”
