No checkmate for Zuma

Much like the experience of Mark Twain, reports of President Jacob Zuma’s demise have to date been greatly exaggerated.

Your editorial, Looters days are numbered as ANC event horizon nears (May 30), suggests that SA may be rid of Zuma by year-end and that the net is drawing tight around him and his compatriots.

It may indeed be. However, another interpretation of the available evidence is that Zuma remains able to outmanoeuvre his critics and may yet exploit the ANC’s pursuit of year-end unity to put in place an infrastructure that secures his legacy for many years to come.

It is the longevity of the legacy that is more important than the formal position occupied by the individual – not enough analysts are making this point.

No one who has bet against Zuma has ever won. In June 2005, former president Thabo Mbeki cast him into the political wilderness, but in May 2009, thanks in part to his skilful manipulation of former Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and then ANC Youth League president Julius Malema, he sat behind Mbeki’s desk in the Union Buildings.

The odds against him now are extraordinary and it is testimony to his tenacity and strategic acumen that he survives politically at all.

In common with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he does not drink and he plays chess, and like Putin, he is an extremely capable and ruthless opponent who deserves, as an adversary, to be treated with the greatest respect.

It will be out of character if in December, he slinks with his key compatriots, tails between their legs, quietly into the night, leaving no sign of the legacy they have worked so hard to create.

Frans Cronje CEO, South African Institute of Race Relations