Is Zuma an evil genius or a genial idiot?
The fading arc of dye at the end of my left thumb nail is a reminder that it’s about 100 days ago that Zuma became president of South Africa, the customary evaluation time. Like the faint mark, most South Africans have probably a less black-and-white view of the man now than they did 100 days ago. Yet I’m not convinced that we fully understand his strange presidency.
Let’s roll back and consider how the Big Man got into power in the first place. Certainly, he didn’t campaign on his clean record of public service and exceptional leadership qualities. Was it perhaps identification with an uneducated, polygamous and deeply conservative tribalist that got him elected? No, I think rather it was the sleazy outcome of a deal between a highly compromised man facing a life of jail and ignominy, and a power-hungry left-wing rabble of communists and trade-unionists. It is difficult to find any other motive for this other than the creation of a puppet for the real rulers, who are perhaps unpalatable to the average voter.
In the process, this rabble threatened and pressurised the judiciary, viciously threatened their enemies real or imaginary and engineered the collapse of prosecutorial independence. Zuma was willing to see the Constitution – the crowning achievement of decades of bitter struggle – threatened and weakened just so that he, as an individual, could escape the very serious charges against him. The way was then opened for him to be pushed into office.
We are seeing the ramifications on this assault on the Constitution. The judiciary is feeling extremely vulnerable and is involved in a public squabble. The prosecuting authorities have lost all credence. Whether these will have long-term ramifications is yet to be seen. Needless to say, the supremacy of the Constitution is in peril.
So the deal is: the left-wing cabal guarantee that Zuma is protected and is given the leeway to use State resources to form a ring of steel around him – an immunity zone. In return, he will be a compliant figurehead, a stooge for the real rulers who have been slavering away for power but could never achieve it in their own right.
Let’s have a look at the evidence for this deal.
The Immunity Zone
After the aggressive political crusade to get the corruption charges dropped against Zuma, the obviously illegal and cynical act of releasing his co-conspirator Shabiar Shaik was made. This is the one man who could have single-handedly sunk Zuma and he was owed big. But more than this, Shaik in jail was dangerous. This threat had to neutralised, even though it compromised a number of government ministries and caused a political scandal.
Zuma, through his government appointments, has drawn a protective blanket around himself. The people that could harm him – the security “cluster” – are to a man his Zulu cronies. For various reasons they are deeply loyal and indebted to him. They include Nathi Mthethwa (police), Siyabonga Cwele (state security), Jeff Radebe (justice), Vusi Mavimbela (Presidency director-general), Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (home affairs), and Siphiwe Nyanda (communications). And of course the appointment of the highly unsuitable but fiercely loyal Zuma side-kick, Bheki “Cowboy” Cele as the new national police commissioner.
But before he is totally safe, there is a bit more compromising to be done. He has been frustrated by not being able to appoint his own lapdog national director of prosecution. He had the temerity to tell a court that the mere fact that the fired incumbent, Vusi Pikoli, had a prima facie case that his firing was illegal, it had no right to interfere with his selection of a successor. I can see why he wants his own man in the position, but is the hopelessly discredited and pliant acting head Mokotedi Mpshe likely to pose a threat? Vusi Pikoli is, of course, a completely different matter.
Then the judges. This is the last bastion of independence remaining in the public sphere. And independence spells danger to Zuma. Someone like John Hlophe readily understands this and has ostentatiously thrown himself into the Zuma camp. Whether he has overplayed his hand remains to be seen, but it is clear by his legion of rabid supporters in the legal fraternity that a sycophantic Constitutional Court is not out of the realms of possibility. One of Zuma’s first actions was to unconstitutionally call a halt to the selection of new judges so that the “transformation” of the judiciary could be re-evaluated. He has shown contempt and disrespect for the judiciary before and there is no reason to believe he has changed his spots.
His attitude to justice applying to African leaders was made abundantly clear when he called for immunity for dictators and then sat silently by while the African Union voted to ignore the arrest warrant for the murderous Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.
A Stooge for the Real Leaders
Who really runs South Africa? To many observers, it ain’t Zuma. He has shown no leadership on any of the important issues facing South Africa. When the townships were engulfed in violent protest, he was nowhere to be seen. When the flames died down he made a surprise visit to one of the hotspots – to wild acclaim. It seems that expectations of him were so low that any action drew amazed adulation. His touch has been so light that he is increasingly being viewed as a ceremonial head of state.
He chose a cabinet that said more about appeasement of the various factions who played a role in his selection as president than about effective government. But it is the finance “cluster” that tells the story about who is running things. He effectively sidelined Trevor Manuel by bringing him into the presidency in a planning capacity and then installed a bunch of communists and trade unionists to run the economy. The communists in this cluster include the Stalinist Pravin Gordhan (finance) and Ron Davies (trade and industry), while radical trade unionist Ebrahim Patel (economic development) is described as “an ardent socialist”. Recently the left-wing Gill Marcus was chosen by Zuma to head the Reserve Bank. This was after intense campaigning by the trade unionists and communists to get rid of Tito Mboweni. Her appointment was welcomed by the SACP.
But it doesn’t end there. Many other ministries are under communist control. Both the general secretary of the SACP, Blade Nzimande (higher education and training) and his deputy in the SACP Jeremy Cronin (dep. transport) are firmly in the cabinet. Nzimande’s voice is increasingly being heard in all spheres of government, particularly in finance and health. His opinions on education are sparse but are mainly on the undesirability of academic freedom and the opening up of tertiary institutions to unqualified students. His increasingly militant outbursts against business and the status quo have not raised a murmur from Zuma.
So who does run South Africa? There is little doubt that South Africa’s unelected “prime minister” is Gwede Mantashe, the secretary-general of the ANC and chairman of the South African Communist Party. Mantashe and the unelected ANC inner-circle set policy and dictate it to Zuma and his ministers. Brazenly, Mantashe is given the unfettered power to summon cabinet ministers to his office to reprimand them for transgressions of his policies. He unrepentantly defends that right.
His alliance partners support him in this. Zwelinzima Vavi, head of the trade union alliance arm, says:
“We are the policymakers in the alliance, and the government implements. The government does not lead anymore.
“I heard about people complaining about Zuma being a stooge of people in Luthuli (House). That’s exactly how it should be.
“He (Zuma) is the president of the ANC, and the ANC is in charge, and never again should we allow the country to be led by the government in that narrow sense,” said Vavi.
Meanwhile, Zuma pops up at the odd public meeting mouthing the words his audience crave to hear, desperately wanting to believe that what he is saying is the truth while the exact opposite view expressed to another audience must have been misunderstood. The fawners talk about his geniality, his people skills, his comfort in his own skin. His new fans admire his ready smile, forgetting his dark past as leader of the notoriously brutal counter-intelligence branch of the ANC in exile, Mbokodo (“the stone that crushes”).
So is Zuma an evil genius in escaping a life in jail and gaining the presidency, or is he a genial idiot, a stooge of a left-wing rulers?
Do we have to choose?
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