Zuma fights removal with last-ditch help
It is a privilege as a political journalist to be witnessing yet another major turning point in the history of SA — for better or worse. Over in the Union Buildings, President Jacob Zuma is digging in his heels against his removal, even as the party he has declared to be more important than the country asks him to do so.
Zuma’s lieutenants outside the party are mobilising support for him, with a march organised by a handful of mostly KwaZulu-Natal-based “civil society” organisations, including the Gupta-sponsored Black Land First. His backers inside the party are also talking tough about plans to remove ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa at a national general council meeting.
In addition, there has been the emergence of a “Federation for Radical Economic Transformation”, to be registered to contest the national poll in 2019. It is widely seen to be Zuma-inspired.
ANC treasurer Paul Mashatile told CNBC on Thursday that the party wanted to avoid the removal of the president through a motion of no confidence or impeachment. But it may have little choice but to go that route and bring such a motion itself, since Zuma seems unlikely to yield.
Recall 2017 ahead of the ANC’s elective conference, when the state president’s backers sought to paint Ramaphosa as a “puppet of the West”. This view has resurfaced and will be used once more to justify why Zuma is defying the ANC and its president.
In Luthuli House, ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule is fighting against the mythical “new dawn” the ANC leadership elected in December was meant to usher in. Business Day understands that he was reprimanded on Monday during a national working committee meeting for his comments in Pietermaritzburg on Sunday that amounted to a swipe at Ramaphosa. He told ANC Youth League members who had backed Nkosazana DlaminiZuma for the top job that five years was not long to wait for the next conference.
He also apparently bucked against the ANC’s national executive committee by packing two provincial task teams for KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State with Zuma loyalists, even after the lists of names had been rejected by the national leadership.
His comments were construed as divisive.
But as the ANC grapples with the rot in its highest echelons, the DA is quietly imploding. Its handling of the drought situation in the Western Cape has been shocking, with the crisis deepened by DA infighting. The desperate attempt to remove Patricia de Lille as Cape Town mayor is so bad, it’s laughable. From the start, the move has been devoid of political strategy or sophistication — not that different to the City of Johannesburg, where mayor Herman Mashaba shielded dodgy mayoral committee member Sharon Peetz for months and then rushed to fire another member, Rabelani Dagada, who is now alleging a smear campaign against him.
In a hilarious twist during a Cape Town council sitting on Wednesday, the DA confirmed that it would support an ANC motion of no confidence in De Lille. The ANC promptly withdrew the motion, leaving the DA with egg on its face as it was forced to bring a motion against its own mayor.
De Lille may have allegations to answer for, but she has so far outplayed the DA in the perception battle, successfully painting herself as a victim of a witch-hunt by the party. Dagada is playing the same emotional game in Johannesburg. It is interesting that the DA’s Western Cape woes are hitting it hard in Gauteng, a province it hopes to win in 2019’s election. Insiders say its treatment of De Lille is affecting its sizeable coloured vote in Gauteng.
The DA will go to an elective conference in April, where its leadership is set on cementing its position. Policy-wise, more of the same is expected, but it will have to do some soulsearching about how it is blurring the lines between party and state in its handling of the Cape drought crisis.
The DA has heavily criticised the ANC for this over the years.
The EFF risks losing relevance when and if Zuma goes, particularly after the ANC hijacked the EFF’s seminal land policy at its national conference in December.
The Inkatha Freedom Party’s (IFP’s) Mangosuthu Buthelezi is set finally to step down after 42 years — or so he says. He announced in October that he would retire at the party’s next elective conference. A date for that has not been set.
Meanwhile, United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa maintains his leader-for-life pose. And former ANC MP Makhosi Khoza’s new party looks set to bleed votes away from both the IFP and the now dysfunctional National Freedom Party in KwaZuluNatal, relegating her to regional obscurity.
While the electorate is spoilt for choice, with no doubt more political parties to come before 2019, it’s a pretty hopeless bunch. Barring a true “new dawn”, the pickings are slim.
IT WILL HAVE TO DO SOUL SEARCHING ABOUT HOW IT IS BLURRING THE LINES BETWEEN PARTY AND STATE IN ITS HANDLING OF CAPE DROUGHT CRISIS