Opposition the winner if Zuma survives
• Mobilising society becomes easy as president’s decisions are directly to blame for failing economy
President Jacob Zuma is the gift horse that keeps on giving to opposition political parties. Should he survive the eighth vote of no confidence against him in Parliament, the biggest beneficiary will be the opposition.
Ironically, the ANC, which declares in a righteous tone it will not vote with the opposition against its own president, in doing so is giving the opposition a huge, unequivocal leg up on the ladder to the highest office.
The ANC has demonstrated it cannot remove its president. Its highest decision-making body, the national executive committee (NEC), has failed twice to oust him on grounds that screamed for his dismissal.
After strident debates and calls within the NEC for Zuma’s removal as head of state, his backers mounted a fierce fightback to keep him at the helm. And week after week, largescale corruption in state entities and dire economic data lay bare the ruinous effect of his administration on the country, greatly affecting the state’s ability to care for its citizens.
On Monday, Statistics SA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey showed employment had again declined — by 113,000 jobs in this quarter — as did the number of job seekers. The largest employment losses were in Gauteng, SA’s economic hub, with a contraction of 143,000 jobs. The country’s perilous economic state can be attributed directly to decisions made by Zuma or incompetent ministers he has appointed and protects.
The ANC has not contemplated the situation it finds itself in and is, therefore, wholly unprepared for it — a situation in which its president is at best inept or at worst, a criminal.
The party’s dithering over renewing and modernising itself for the past two-and-a-half decades has finally caught up with it.
The ANC has no provision in its constitution on how to proceed if its choice for party president, and by extension head of state, is found wanting and removed through a parliamentary vote by MPs voting according to their oath pledged to the Constitution of the country.
Therefore, the party’s chief whip, Jackson Mthembu, can describe a possible revolt against the party line by MPs as tantamount to dropping a “nuclear bomb” on the country and the ANC.
This is because of the inherent complexity a weak, divided and leaderless ANC — which SA now has — faces if Zuma is removed through a parliamentary process.
What happens next? Senior ANC leaders indicate the situation will become untenable for the governing party, mainly because Zuma, despite having been removed by Parliament, will remain party president and head of the NEC. Further complicating matters is the ANC’s constitutional provision that the party’s president should be the president of the country.
What then could the party do? It could call an early national conference, but its NEC, which remains stacked with Zuma cronies, will be unlikely to agree to this. It will be clear to the Zuma faction that their days are numbered should this happen. The parliamentary caucus being so heavily divided that it could vote out a president should ring alarm bells for this group.
Another very simple but scary scenario raised is Zuma’s potential to disobey such an order. He is on record as repeatedly stating that only the ANC can remove him — only ANC branches elected him and only these structures could remove him from office.
Will the president then submit to the will of Parliament in a vote by opposition parliamentarians and about 50 to 60 ANC MPs out of a total of 249 MPs? It is unlikely.
What then will he do to remain in office?
Another factor to consider is the fight that would ensue in the ANC and in Parliament over who the next president should be and whether this could lead to a constitutional crisis.
This scenario links directly to the factionalism within the ANC. The 50 or 60 MPs who vote against Zuma could for instance have a clear alternative for president in mind. But what of the remainder of the party’s parliamentarians who voted for him? Would they agree if this candidate was, for instance, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa? It is unlikely.
The ANC is in a bind and the logical conclusion would be for it to do everything it can to keep Zuma in office, at least until December when it holds its national conference.
This is its fall-back position. But it is a reactive one, without a clear, logical, coherent strategy to dispel the perceptions created by its continued support for a wholly inadequate and possibly criminal and corrupt president.
The reason for this is that the party failed to act when it had the opportunity to do so.
After the disastrous removal of Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister in 2015; the 2016 Constitutional Court judgment in the Nkandla matter that Zuma failed to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution; and the outcome of the 2016 local election; the ANC had the opportunity to act out of its own volition. It elected not to do so.
Yes, Zuma remained party president, but the party could have grabbed the opportunity and possibly convened an early conference, or even a consultative one, to discuss and plan for the best and most painless way to remove Zuma — but it failed to do so.
It has been presented with opportunities to act against Zuma, but failed to make use of these. The NEC stuck its head in the sand, which culminated in the moment it now faces.
Meanwhile, the opposition parties have the upper hand in galvanising society against the ANC and its president.
The moment is one in which the opposition — the “enemy” in ANC-speak — is able to dictate the pace and the tempo of the battle. The ANC is merely reacting to their actions.
Even if Tuesday’s motion was postponed, the party would again arrive at this moment in a month or two in which the unhappiness over its posture of forcing MPs to toe the line has deepened, attitudes have hardened and who knows? The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal may have moved to expel MPs such as Makhosi Khoza. Whether on Tuesday or in two months, the momentum against Zuma in broader society is on the rise.
The party’s defence of the president sends nothing less than a message that the ANC chooses Zuma over the country and its people.
The motion of no confidence in Zuma is a major moment in SA’s nascent democracy, or it should be one, but the ANC has missed it.
The effect is that opposition parties are now dictating the pace and tempo of events.
Expect these parties to keep the upper hand until the campaign begins for the 2019 national election.
EVEN IF TUESDAY’S MOTION IS POSTPONED, THE PARTY WILL AGAIN ARRIVE AT THIS MOMENT