Tight calls for Zuma in his state of nation address as his power wanes

Challenge to his leadership by ANC national executive committee is one of the factors that have shaken him

When President Jacob Zuma delivers his 10th state of the nation address tonight, he will be aware of how his power is draining away. Zuma has been a formidably powerful leader. Unlike most ANC presidents who went before him, he has shaken free of the constraints of collective leadership and accountability and been unafraid to govern in his own interests.

He has been a profoundly factional leader, exercising power with scant regard for the ANC’s unity or the interests of the country.

But now he is under pressure from too many quarters. His loss of influence in Parliament is clearly apparent. Since ANC chief whip Jackson Mthembu urged him to step down in October after the August election shock, the tide has been turning.

MPs who had earlier defended his spending on his private home at Nkandla to the point of absurdity and ridicule, are now wary of being used to justify his excesses.

His proxies on the SABC board have been thoroughly annihilated by a parliamentary committee and now face censure; his attempt to stall the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Bill was given short thrift by Parliament and his proxy in that regard — Mzwanele Manyi — treated with disdain.

Parliament now appears in no hurry to investigate the troublesome head of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, Robert McBride, whom Zuma ally Police Minister Nathi Nhleko tried to fire.

The ANC national executive committee (NEC) is also not what it used to be. The challenge to Zuma’s leadership last November blindsided him and has shaken him. While before he had rock-solid support in the NEC, he can’t be sure of who supports him anymore.

The ANC succession race is changing the dynamics within the top six, with several of the others ready to go up against his chosen candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa is becoming more outspoken; Speaker Baleka Mbete must be annoyed that she has not been supported and Zweli Mkhize appears to have unhitched his wagon from Zuma some time ago.

On the wider political stage, 2016 brought a series of setbacks for Zuma: the Nkandla Constitutional Court ruling; the Spy Tapes judgment, which could see corruption charges reinstated against him; the public protector’s State of Capture report and the spirited defence mounted by business and civil society to protect Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

The result was he was unable to do what he had planned. In May and again in October and November, a political climate for the removal of Gordhan was built up through a combination of hints and threats by the Hawks. Both times Zuma was beaten back by the huge reaction to save Gordhan. To the extent that he had not already, he also lost the support of ANC allies the SACP and Cosatu.

But while dynamics are shifting, Zuma is still the key player in the game. Much hinges on what he says and does, both in Parliament tonight and in how he intends to reshape his Cabinet in the weeks to come.

We have had more than enough warning that the focus of the speech will be radical economic transformation. The need for faster more profound change in the ownership of the economy is palpable. The land-reform programme, black economic empowerment and affirmative action have not changed racial patterns of ownership or of the lived experience of the black majority.

By now, we are also quite aware of what the ANC means by radical economic transformation. In a statement earlier this week, it outlined the 12 things that needed to be done, from returning the land (using Constitutional means); setting aside 30% of government procurement for black and small business; diversifying ownership in the financial sector (through, for instance, licensing the Post Bank); and increasing the black-ownership requirement of mines.

Also included in the list was: investment in township and rural communities; the roll-out of broadband infrastructure to public institutions; agricultural development; infrastructure for basic services and housing; the national minimum wage; free higher education for the poor; trade policy; and fighting corruption.

The careful formulations — around the importance of the Constitution, for example — indicate that the ANC, or at least its secretariat and economic transformation committee, remain mindful that without economic growth, this now too-familiar list will remain illusory.

On the other hand, Zuma’s special coterie of friends and supporters — Manyi and his various organisations and the ANC Women’s League — have begun to advocate that the Constitution be abandoned. They have also attacked the ratings agencies, accusing them of depriving SA of its sovereignty. Zuma’s thoughts and objectives are increasingly being expressed by groupings such as these, and by the paid Twitter brigade, rather than by the ANC in its formal utterances.

This is an alternative version of “radical economic transformation”, in which white monopoly capital is held responsible for slow progress. White monopoly means the domination of the economy by a few families which, it is (erroneously) claimed, own majority stakes in the banks and control most of SA’s wealth. This clique has remained in power through collusion with the Treasury, it is claimed, and its previous and current officials and political leadership.

This is the flavour that Zuma would like to insert into ANC policy and thinking.

If this narrative were to be accepted by the ANC or by sections of the public, he would be able to legitimise his fight against the Treasury and liberal constitutional mechanisms such as the public protector, and even the Constitution itself.

Aware of this intention, in the last meeting of the national executive, others have tried to get the term “white monopoly capital” declared “un-ANC” for not ever having been part of the party’s lexicon.

The ANC secretariat statement in which the list of measures that constitute radical economic transformation was issued was a small reminder to Zuma and his speech writers not to stray from ANC orthodoxy.

When he delivers his speech, Zuma will be well aware of this warning as well as of his significantly reduced influence in the ANC.

A key issue will be whether the boldness with which he told the ANC policy workshop that ANC policy was “not radical enough” finds its way into the speech, or whether he considers it wiser to back down.

While Zuma himself will be well aware that his currency in the ANC is diminishing, the grouping of political cronies who have assembled around him will not want him to back down this time.

The same applies to the pressure he is under to reshuffle the Cabinet and, in particular, to dump Gordhan. Having whimped out twice from firing Gordhan, Zuma is under enormous pressure to do it this time. In recent weeks, the ANC Women’s League and its Youth League have made frenzied calls for Gordhan’s removal, because, they claim without any basis, he is blocking transformation at South African Airways and giving tenders to his friends. He is complicit too, they argue, in the apartheid lifeboat to Absa, which was to the benefit of his apartheid cronies and his Treasury friends.

A reshuffle could provoke another wave of anger within the ANC. With the ANC splitting and fracturing in several places as individuals throw themselves into the succession race, a reshuffle would be terribly risky.

But at the same time, there are things that his friends want and need done. Most important for them would be an assurance that when Zuma goes, their factional power bloc will be able to retain its influence. There are also other important things they want to achieve: buying their own bank, to which the finance minister must assent, is one; the nuclear procurement programme is another. A third is control over state-owned enterprises in general, where major transactions such as disposals and acquisitions all require Treasury approval.

Zuma’s demeanour while delivering what will likely be his second-last state of the nation address will be watched closely from all angles for clues.