In 2019, when National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head Shamila Batohi released the institution’s annual performance statistics they seemingly went by unnoticed. Serious crimes in this country have a prosecution rate of 2%; hijackings 3%; home robberies 4.6%. And less than 20% of murder cases end up in court.

This essentially means that if you are robbed, hijacked and killed, there is a high probability that there will not even be an attempt at justice being served. One would expect public outrage on the release of such statistics, but it seems South Africans have become numb to injustice. We can’t even fake indignation. Injustice seems to be the order of the day.

The Zuma case is unique because it has shown us that our system is highly susceptible to corruption, manipulation and all sorts of political skulduggery. At first Zuma was more calculating in his moves against the system, in cahoots with other political and executive loyalists. But those smaller victories have given him the confidence, and brazenness, that he is not even moderate any more. The man thinks (or maybe knows) that he is above the law.

The rape and corruption trials were his testing ground for this strategy, where he learnt the art of using public sympathy and political power against the system. It didn’t help that the NPA completely botched things in 2006, resulting in judge Herbert Msimang having to dismiss the case while scolding the prosecutors. The alliance used this to feed the political narrative surrounding Zuma, thus launching a strategy that has come to dominate in SA: using political influence to help bend the system to your will. The court appearances allowed Zuma to hold political rallies of his own. If you’re going to be in court all day, you might as well make something out of it.

In late 2007, just as the NPA was getting its ducks in a row, Zuma planned a coup of his own. The first stage included the 2007 Polokwane conference, then the illegal obtaining of the phone call transcripts between the former head of the NPA, Bulelani Ngcuka, and former Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy. Both of these (the victory and the tapes) would provide the political muscle needed to strong-arm the then head of the NPA, Mokotedi Mpshe, to drop the charges.

It took the DA to bring sanity to the situation. For eight years it wrestled with the NPA right up to the appeals court, to force it to reinstate the charges. Meanwhile, SA sat with an alleged criminal in the Union buildings with full executive power. And with this executive power came two benefits, which would also be incorporated into his defence strategy:

Zuma had full access to state funds, which he could use to fight all his legal battles. This meant the financial burden of evading justice would fall on the very public who were victims of his crimes.

He had the right to appoint the national director of public prosecutions, the same person who would have the responsibility of prosecuting him.

These two benefits were fully used by Zuma. The man had to be told twice by the Constitutional Court that his appointments to head the NPA were unconstitutional. And he didn’t hold back on using public money either — that was fully used to the tune of more than R15m.

But this was not all. Have we forgotten the tussles with the public protector in the Nkandla matter? And how can we forget the famous leaked tape of Thuli Madonsela trying to force Zuma to answer the most basic of questions in the state capture investigation? The reason we have a state capture commission now is because of the allegation that executive privilege and responsibility was surrendered to three brothers in Saxonwold.