Paralysis as Zuma digs in

WE KNOW that President Jacob Zuma’s days as South Africa’s No 1 citizen are numbered. We are also told he is clinging to power, even though there is growing support – within his party – for him to go.

The result is uncertainty and a state of paralysis.

The State of the Nation address (Sona) was postponed less than 48 hours before it was due to be delivered. The only certainty we have is the continuation of the emotional roller-coaster of the past few years.

Compare Zuma’s chaotic exit with that of former president Thabo Mbeki, who was recalled by the ANC as president of the Republic almost a decade ago.

Mbeki stepped down within hours of his recall. His address to the nation reflected a humble individual, a man who put his country and his party before himself. He left with a great degree of dignity and without fuss. This is what is expected of a president whose party recalls him. No grandstanding and none of the drama witnessed when some presidents become hell-bent on defying the people who put them there.

Unfortunately, Mbeki was wrong about one thing.

“I am convinced that the incoming administration will better the work done during the past 14-and-half years so that poverty, underdevelopment, unemployment, illiteracy, challenges of health, crime and corruption will cease to define the lives of many of our people,” he said at the time.

But we know the administration under Zuma did nothing of the sort. So, how will we remember Zuma?

To answer that question was in the part of Mbeki’s farewell speech referring to Nelson Mandela, the first president of a democratic South Africa who stepped down in 1999.

There is much in the speech to show the high esteem in which Mandela was held. But perhaps the closing lines were the most telling: “After a long walk, we too, have arrived at the starting point of a new journey.

“We have you, Madiba, as our nearest and brightest star to guide us on our way. We will not get lost…”

Unfortunately, unlike democratic South Africa’s first presidents, the same can’t be said of Zuma. He does not deserve to be No 1.