President Jacob Zuma is fighting desperately for his political life

President Jacob Zuma is fighting desperately for his political life, staggering from one scandal or misjudgement to another, writes Richard Calland.
 President Jacob Zuma apologised to his country on national television just before 8 in the evening after a dramatic 36 hours that ended with him hanging onto power by a thread.
The day before his televised apology the South Africa’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, ruled that Zuma had failed to “uphold, defend, respect” the Constitution. The court found that he had done this by refusing to accept that he should pay back a portion of the public money that was spent on security upgrades to his private homestead, Nkandla.The judgment was widely, and rightly, celebrated as a victory for constitutional democracy and the Public Protector – SA’s ombud, established by the Constitution that was signed into law by then-President Nelson Mandela, 20 years ago.
The Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela’s report, “Secure in Comfort”, was published in March 2014. For the best part of two years Zuma resisted accepting the “remedial action”. The Constitutional Court this week ruled that this remedial action was binding on him. He also used his party’s majority in the National Assembly to further filibuster and obfuscate – earning the national parliament a similarly sharp rebuke from the Constitutional Court.
In another, earlier case involving a challenge to the Public Protector’s powers by the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s Chief Operating Officer Hlaudi Motsoneng, the Western Cape High Court ruled that Madonsela’s powers were not binding like a court order. But, the court found, any “remedial action” that she ordered should be taken by the government unless there was a rational reason not to.
When the decision was appealed, the Supreme Court of Appeal later adjusted this legal test to the one that the Constitutional Court confirmed on Thursday – namely that the power of the Public Protector to “take remedial action” is binding unless successfully challenged by way of judicial review.
Zuma and his lawyers are adept at using the courts as a delaying tactic. The challenge to the decision to drop corruption charges against him shortly before he came to power in 2009 has dragged along at a snail’s pace thanks to his various procedural challenges. A decision of the North Gauteng High Court is now pending, the matter having finally been heard in March 2016.
In his television address Zuma took refuge behind the legal advice that he claimed had informed his original approach, citing the Western Cape High Court decision. This can only be described as an outrageously brazen and disingenuous ex post facto re-framing of the history of the matter.
It will not fool many.