Daily Dispatch
Zuma playing end game
YESTERDAY news broke that President Jacob Zuma was considering stepping down next year, 12 months before his term as president ends, as part of a deal that would see Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan leave office immediately.
This comes as 12 Cabinet ministers are rumoured to be ready to walk out if the president goes ahead and axes Gordhan.
Such a walk-out has in fact, been in the air for some time. The question has been how many ministers were ready to take the leap. Such a moment seems to have arrived. While Zuma has the authority to appoint new ministers if it happens, this is not the only opposition he is facing.
Zuma cannot count entirely on the backing of all the ANC MPs. Of late, many have found their voices against the maladministration happening in the various parastatals.
If 50 ANC MPs are ready to switch sides Zuma could lose a motion of no confidence.
Meanwhile the EFF has launched a bid in the Constitutional Court to force parliament to impeach Zuma.
Yesterday the SACP also expressed its extreme displeasure, not only about the Gordhan recall and proposed dismissal, but the fact that Zuma has been acting without consulting the tripartite alliance partner.
This speaks to a general trend of rogue behaviour. In the last year there have been repeated instances where the president has operated beyond any lines of accountability. But an end to such liberty may be in sight. The degree to which Zuma is seen as a liability for the ANC was powerfully demonstrated at the Ahmed Kathrada funeral on Wednesday. It is also evident in the slide in membership numbers.
As an organisation the ANC must consider the added effect on its fortunes of a mass walkout by Cabinet ministers. This is especially in the face of the 2019 elections.
Zuma of course, has never shown signs of caring what happens to the ANC – not now, not after his term as party president ends in December, not after his term as the country's president is supposed to end in 2019.
His objectives have been to ensure he never faces 783 charges of corruption and to facilitate the enrichment of his family and cronies.
This includes pushing through the ruinously expensive nuclear deal with Russia.
But Zuma cannot achieve all of this on his own.
He now finds himself increasingly alone and cornered. If ever there was a time for Zuma to negotiate an exit deal it is now – before his house of cards collapses entirely.
The trouble with the so-called “deal” being floated in public is that it is no deal at all.
Gordhan, Jonas and the director general of the Treasury Lungisa Fuzile have proved to be trustworthy gatekeepers of the national Treasury against a relentless onslaught.
Removing all of them would signal an open season for looters. An escalation of the outrageous abuses evident in the Sassa affair would almost certainly follow. Replacing just one of the trio could set in place a wedge against clean process.
That former Eskom boss Brian Molefe has been suggested as a potential candidate to replace Gordhan is an appalling proposition.
The keys to the treasury must remain in clean hands. It is the corrupt who must fall.