In punishing Zuma and Trump we indict ourselves, but it must be done

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Former US president Donald Trump. PHOTO | AFP

There is hardly anything elegant in the spectre of a former head of state being pursued criminally, and what is happening to Donald Trump and Jacob Zuma is particularly shabby.

Two jurisdictions' worlds apart have found that their former chiefs were worth investigating for infractions committed either in or out of office, and in the case of one of them it has been decided that he go to jail while the other’s fate still has to be decided.