Jacob Zuma, the former president of South Africa, and Sebastián Piñera, the current president of Chile, have one thing in common: both are heads of state facing the justice of their country.
In Chile, never has a president been so close to impeachment
The Chilean Senate is due to vote on Tuesday, November 16 for or against the ouster of right-wing billionaire Sebastián Piñera. Presidential and legislative elections are taking place this Sunday to designate the successor to the right-wing president in power since 2018. But Sebastián Piñera has therefore been overtaken by the pandora papers scandal and senators must decide whether to end his mandate now. of president. During his first term in 2010, his children sold a controversial mining project in northern Chile, but the sales contract was signed in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven. A clause provided that the money would only be paid in full if the site where the mine was to be located was not declared a protected natural area. A flagrant conflict of interest for the left-wing opposition here, because this decision then fell directly to the president himself.
Following these revelations from the international consortium of investigative journalists, left-wing parliamentarians launched impeachment proceedings against him, which was validated by MPs last week. At the same time, Sebastián Piñera was indicted for corruption and tax evasion.
Last week, his dismissal was played out with one voice among the deputies. The vote was all the tighter as several left-wing parliamentarians were in contact with Covid-19 because one of the favorites of the presidential election, MP Gabriel Boric, was positive for Covid a fortnight ago. A Socialist elected representative therefore spoke for fourteen hours in a row to allow the last contact case to end his period of isolation and come to vote in the Assembly. It will be more difficult today, because it would still lack five votes to the opposition to confirm the impeachment of the president. At the end of 2019, Sebastián Piñera had already been the subject of an impeachment procedure. The left then reproached him for the violations of human rights committed by the police during the great social movement against inequalities. The procedure had not succeeded.
In Johannesburg, Jacob Zuma is not done with his legal woes
In South Africa, a permanent standoff has for years been opposing former President Jacob Zuma, head of state between 2009 and 2018, and the courts, following a political course riddled with scandals and cases of corruption. Thus, after a short incarceration, which triggered a wave of riots last July, Jacob Zuma is now on parole, but has not finished with his legal woes.
Because even if the 79-year-old ex-president can now complete his 15-month prison sentence for contempt of justice at home, for “medical reasons” not detailed and which have caused a lot of reaction in the country, Jacob Zuma does not has not finished going to court. He is currently being prosecuted in the Thalès affair, a case that dates back to the end of the 1990s: Jacob Zuma, then vice-president, allegedly received bribes as part of an arms contract signed with the French company. Not to mention that other cases, such as that, under his presidency, of the looting of public finances by the Gupta family, could one day be added to it.
The one nicknamed “President Teflon”, for his ability to escape justice, does not hesitate to portray himself as a martyr and to compare his situation to that of political prisoners under apartheid. He himself at the time served ten years in prison on Robben Island, the island where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated. “I am still a prisoner, who must abide by strict parole rules, he exclaims. It reminds me a lot of what house arrest, surveillance looked like during the days of the apartheid colonial government. “
At the same time, its legal team is deploying an avoidance strategy, with one objective: to delay and drag out proceedings by all means. This Thales scandal, for example, dates back more than 20 years, and the former president has already avoided indictments in this context, in particular for a technical defect in 2008. Now, his lawyers are attacking the prosecutor of the case and ask that it be removed from the file. But the judge did not give in, and considers that the rights of Jacob Zuma are respected. The trial is expected to resume next April.