Will Zuma play the victim?

SOUTH AFRICA is on tenterhooks for yet another day – and perhaps even longer – after the ANC recalled President Jacob Zuma as its deployee to the highest office in the land.

The national executive committee’s (NEC) decision was the final iteration in the party’s elephantine gestation of the so-called transition of power from Zuma to new party president Cyril Ramaphosa. Ramaphosa has been at pains to ensure that this power shift takes place without eviscerating the party.

It is too early to tell if he has been successful with either gambit. Zuma said yesterday he would respond in due course, which many commentators believe will be today, while the NEC noticeably failed to give Zuma a time limit to comply with its decision.

If he doesn’t resign, Ramaphosa will be forced to use the ANC’s parliamentary caucus, abetted by the opposition, to recall Zuma.

Ramaphosa has been evangelising throughout on the need for party unity since his election at Nasrec in Johannesburg last month. Zuma, though, seems keen to use every stratagem imaginable to frustrate Ramaphosa, whose control of the all-important NEC might not be as total as some guessed.

The time it took for them to emerge from conclave and the lack of a deadline suggest a decision that was wrested grudgingly, then rendered almost meaningless.

Ramaphosa earned deserved kudos for the alacrity with which he assumed power in the shadows, eradicating the kleptocracy at Eskom and freeing state institutions to do their jobs, especially the National Prosecuting Authority and the new focus on state capture investigations and prosecutions.

Now, though, the momentum is slipping away as Zuma continues to brazenly defy him, winning concessions only to throw them back in Ramaphosa’s face.

In 2008, Zuma was ironically spared the same conundrum by the honourable conduct of his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, when Zuma manufactured his recall. The callousness of Zuma’s camp, though, opened wounds in the party that continue to suppurate today.

Zuma has no qualms whatsoever about ripping these open anew and playing the victim card, which has always been part of his arsenal. Ramaphosa has no option but to go for the jugular if he hopes to lead the party to victory at the polls next year.