The Soapbox | Where South Africans Speak Out

BY AKANYANG MEREMENTSI

President Jacob Zuma had an affair with a woman who was not his wife. They both had a child, and as per cultural norms, Zuma did pay his dues and apologised to South Africa (and probably his wives too — one just wonders how they took the news) with the hope of being forgiven and forgotten that it never happen. Well, not so easily.

Democratic Alliance Hellen Zille was up in arms at the time, arguing that if Zuma does not like public scrutiny, he should then resign. This after ANC defended Zuma when Zille said Zuma thought he was above the law and could do anything and get away with it (having as many kids outside wedlock as he sees fit, maybe?).

It was after Zuma’s apology that everyone moved on. Or at least so it seemed at the time, until Congress of the People said it would pass a vote of no confidence for Zuma in continuing to be the country’s president.

Zille has defended Western Cape MEC for community safety Lennit Max’s “alleged extramarital affair” after Rapport newspaper reported on Max’s alleged sexual harassment. According to the report Max is accused ‘four previous allegations of sexual harassment when he was still the provincial police commissioner’.

At the time of writing Max was on a ‘paid leave’ – something Zuma told the SABC recently, after his state of the nation address last week, that government would have to take a firm stand on irrespective of which political party one is a member of – pending the outcome of the investigation.

It was very contradictory of Zille to defend Max in saying ‘an extramarital affair between consenting adults in private is not a matter that can be regulated by a political party’.

This, according to a Sunday Times report, was after Max was ‘accused of having an extramarital affair and unprotected sex with a former police clerk, Belinda Peterson’ several times in 2007 as ’she had been unable to pay him in cash when he was her legal representative during a police disciplinary hearing’ Max  unashamedly did all this allegedly ‘on his son’s bed and in the main bedroom’. Jesus Christ!

A few years ago Zuma had a “sexual and consenting adult” relationship with a friend’s daughter – something he is very good and excellent at – while still a deputy president of the African National Congress and South Africa which cost him the former role.

Both Zuma and Max hold high positions in government and surely their conduct as public servants and representatives should be the same. Or shouldn’t they because on the one hand Max is just an MEC who less is expected from while on the other hand Zuma as THE PRESIDENT, too much is expected?

What’s the difference?

Akanyang Merementsi blogs at Akanyang Africa.