The Electoral Court’s latest decision to allow Jacob Zuma to stand as a candidate in the upcoming election has many commentators – eParkeni being no exception – eating humble pie. Not only is the former president having the last laugh, he is also adding to his lored streak as the ‘Teflon president,’ all of five years since he vacated the position. We’d thought that Section 47 of the Constitution was clear enough on the matter and that that was all there was to it. But laws are clearly a different kettle of fish to lowly commentary, and, as experts have alluded, this still may not quite be how the story ends.
You’d remember that when Zuma was Number One (do excuse the pun), he survived no fewer than eight motion of no confidence votes. With the cloud of state capture looming large, the damning Guptas leaks, the Weekend Special ministerial appointment that saw the Rand plummet overnight, cabinet appointments made by the Gupta brothers, former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe wailing on national television, shockingly, the man would still wield enough clout as to anoint his ex-wife to contest the 2017 ANC Elective Conference.
Clearly he believed in his own myth. Why wouldn’t he? Discarded to the political wilderness by former president Thabo Mbeki in 2005 when the deputy president’s financial advisor Schabir Shaik was convicted of making corrupt payments, it seemed like the end of the road for Zuma. That same year he faced a rape case whose particulars remain popular material for disparaging lampooning and standup comics. Expecting that Zuma would be left to forage on honey and wild locusts, isolated and with no friends in Nkandla, Mbeki then took to pushing for a third term as president of the ANC.
It is an open secret that not only did Mbeki doubt that Zuma lacked the wherewithal to lead a country, he also mistrusted him. Writing on City Press, the contributor Yonela Diko recounts a conversation between Mbeki and Vusi Mavimbela, ‘former member of the ANC’s political council in Lusaka and former director-general (DG) of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).’
The DG was trying ‘to bring harmony to what was clearly a souring relationship between the president and his then deputy, Jacob Zuma.’ Mbeki was unwavering; ‘Klaus (using Mavimbela’s exile nom de guerre, clearly trying to awaken the DG’s political consciousness), how do we leave the health and future of the ANC and government in the hands of such people? The man has no capacity to do the things we said need to be done; no capacity whatsoever.’
But Mbeki had clearly not read the room: the ‘Klauses’ were fewer, outnumbered by a steady stream of career politicians as well as Communists and ‘workerists’ who found Mbeki’s neo-liberal proclivities antithetical to their socialist agenda. Rather than abandon Zuma, they took to reworking him image, parading him as a working class hero, an ‘unstoppable tsunami’ who might put the maxim of ‘a chicken in every pot’ back on the table at the Union Buildings. This was an imperative; save a seemingly flawed man to save face with the common folk.
How perplexing it all was to see stalwarts as ordinarily principled and upright as then COSATU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi cheerfully leaping onto the bandwagon. Their scheme paid off, and on 18 December 2007, a grinning Zuma obliterated Mbeki to be elected ANC president at its 52nd Elective Conference in Polokwane. Many of those who celebrated that victory have since disappeared, some are answering to new masters but almost to a man they look back on that episode as the day that the wheels really started to fall off.
President Cyril Ramaphosa would regain leadership of the party in 2017 and proceed to do unto Zuma what Mbeki had attempted all those years ago; fire him for good. But by then, many would agree, the damage had been done.
In trying to save one man, the ANC had laid waste to whatever remained of a party struggling to keep up appearances. In Diko’s phrasing, since ‘that fateful day in 2003’ when the National Director of Public Prosecutions said it had a prima facie case against Zuma ‘the entire state apparatus’ was used to keep him out of jail. It was around this time, writes Diko, that ‘would signal the birth of ugilikanqolo (the hairy monster).’
With the EC’s ruling the man or monster they call Nxamalala has resurfaced, using a name straight from the ANC struggle handbook to have a go at harpooning the very organisation he once vowed would rule ‘until Jesus comes back.’ The court rulings in favour of uMkhonto weSizwe will no doubt reinvigorate the leadership and excite the masses, augmenting onto the street legend of the man who’s never been to university but ‘see what he does to these “booked” ones.’ The idea of the artful dodger who is always slipping from the clutches of everything his enemies put in his way, this is by no means a quality that goes ignored in simpler spaces.
Whilst the pundits speculate on what the EC’s decision might mean (the full judgement is yet to be released), for now there’s a single talking point: Zuma is apparently destined for the National Assembly, so what does it bode for the ANC, the prospect of a coalition government, but mostly, for the beloved Mzansi.
These recent developments are reminiscent of the breakaway faction that would be known as the Congress of the People (COPE). It too had nicked a name that the ANC considered part of its history and, with former ANC stalwarts in its ranks, looked to threaten the ruling party. But barely into its first term, it was clear that they were no more than a damp squib.
Why?
For one, they simply weren’t loud enough and, again, reading the room: Mbeki’s squabbles with Zuma isolated the former from those comrades who’d not enjoyed a first-world education in exile but were at the coalface of the protests and Bantu Education internally. These things have the potential to make or break a politician’s street cred and a few years ago even had the bigwigs engaged in heated debates. Mbeki often failed to remember exactly who most of his voters are. He appeared to think of himself as the ANC and preferred to associate with those who, like himself, were of an intellectual bent.
What he hadn’t taken stock of was that the party landscape had changed considerably since the days when Madiba would openly acknowledge and praise Mbeki’s prowess. Now, the people who were gradually dominating were those not too overly preoccupied with complex policy formulation, proaction and macroeconomics as they were simply beaurocrats who just wanted to fulfill the basic job requirements and get paid handsomely for it. Unlike Mbeki, a bookworm who reads into the wee hours, these were the sort of guys who knew what time to knock off.
Hence when people like Mbhazima Shilowa – thinkers and intellectuals – left, it was a matter of good riddance and it was simply business as usual for those who’d grown wary of Mbeki’s highmindedness anyway. How often has the Dear Reader heard the promise of firing non-performing ministers only to find them simply recycled or promoted. Which is exactly why Jacob Zuma’s first move when he took power was to flood the party precisely with such lackluster elements.
Nowadays Zuma has reinvented himself a man who speaks Radical Economic Transformation, shuns liberal rhetoric for the hardline stance of severe punishment to social ills and positions himself as the one who will right the wrongs of Ramaphosa’s pandering ANC – enough cause to have the ruling party sweating bullets. It would not be the first time that the ANC has been called a sell-out. The spoils of jobs and economic prosperity simply aren’t trickling down to everybody fast enough, making the ANC like a government that has deferred the promise of ‘a better life for all.’
Add to this Zuma’s cult status in KwaZulu-Natal and the fact that the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has made inroads in that province as demonstrated in recent by-elections and so the prospect of the IFP shunning the MPC and tagging along with a homeboy is not too far-fetched. Nor in fact the very real possibility of the EFF doing the same. Julius Malema may have been particularly hostile to Zuma during the former’s presidency but he was also amongst the first to visit him for tea in the midst of Zuma’s issues with the Zondo Commission. And, as previously stressed, ours is a political culture steeped in personalities that a single leader’s visit today may mean much, much more come 29 May.
As to where we are now, it’s clear. The loudest parties are drawing attention whilst those who opt for conservatism and low-profile campaigning are drowned out by the noise. Looking through various media platforms, parties that seemed like rising stars in the latter part of last year, have seemingly disappeared under the radar. Yes, I know this all sounds ridiculous but, trust me, noise, like personalities, commands handsome currency at this time of the year, in this part of the world.