zuma, again.

so, the anc and the alliance partners are upset at jonathan shapiro.

most south africans don't know who that is by name, but he makes political cartoons under the moniker "zapiro", which a lot of people do.

while he's loudly cheered the good things about this place, he has also loudly mocked what's wrong with this place.

yesterday's photo is a loud mockery of what's wrong with this place.

but before the photo, the backstory:

the heir apparent to the presidency of south africa, jacob zuma, has beaten a rape charge, but is awaiting trial on corruption charges [some of which have his financial advisor currently sitting in "jail". i say "jail" instead of jail because he is in a hospital due to severe high blood pressure and not actually in jail.]

zuma consistently says that he wants a speedy trial, which is his right, but has been throwing all kinds of roadblocks into what, exactly, can be used as evidence in his trial. this is also his right, but it goes against the whole "wanting a speedy trial" bit. in addition, the clock is ticking. if he can hold on without having gone to trial until april, it's very likely that he will do a chirac -- that is, have legislation passed against holding a trial against a currently serving president.

hm.

in addition, there are calls now that there be a political solution to this problem. um, hello, it's a criminal case, why should there be a political solution? "because it was politically motivated," his supporters say. um, and? even if it were, let them go to court. plain and simple.

with all this is mind, here is the cartoon over which the ANC is fuming:





i'll admit, when i saw this in the paper yesterday, i was like "wow. someone's going to get angry over that." which is exactly what happened.

the shower on top of zuma's head is there because during the rape trial -- zuma had unprotected sex with a woman who he knew to be hiv-positive -- he said that after the sex he "took a shower to wash off the aids". [we won't even begin to go into THAT lapse of judgment, but i do think he should cough up with a blood test. i mean, he's got 17 kids by 8 different women, he needs to be seriously checked out.]