Daily Dispatch

ANC must recall Zuma

IF Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba knew on Friday of South Africa’s investment downgrade there is little likelihood that its announcement on Monday was a surprise to President Jacob Zuma.

Gigaba would have briefed the president. And there is the fact that Zuma has taken us down this road before, in December 2015.

It is also likely that Zuma would have anticipated the massive uproar over his Cabinet purge. He is a master strategist and tactician. These strengths were evident as far back as his imprisonment on Robben Island where he reigned as chess champion.

His strategic talents and understanding of the machinery of the ANC were again on display when he outmanoeuvred one of the ANC’s sharpest minds at Polokwane.

And Zuma’s tactical abilities have also been on display from the outset of his presidency as he has managed to sidestep the repercussions of one scandal after the next, either through the sacrifice of a hapless minion or the mindless indulgence of the ANC.

He would have left the taxpayer with the total bill for his Nkandla hen hok, cattle kraal and “firepool” had the Constitutional Court not stopped him.

But in hindsight the most unsettling aspect of the Nkandla affair is not so much Zuma’s absence of conscience and his mocking laughter in parliament. It is the fact that even then Nkandla was not actually the only game in town.

This is evident in the State of Capture report which reveals a plan long in the making, one with a reach as vast as it is audacious. Its execution – Zuma’s consolidation of control of one state institution or enterprise after another – has been achieved by one systematic move after another.

By yesterday the last of three people who were obstacles – the director-general of the Treasury, Lungisa Fuzile – was reportedly heading for the door.

Zuma may not have expected Cheryl Carolus, Murphy Morobe, Frank Chikane and a host of other heavyweight ANC veterans to publicly eviscerate him as they did yesterday – even comparing his behaviour to that of a dictator – but he surely would have anticipated that the struggle-tested stalwarts would not go quietly into the night as he completed his soft coup.

As a master tactician with a long-term, very high-stakes goal in mind, he would also have anticipated the sort of opposition now evident in parliament and the citizenry to his firing of performing ministers.

But yesterday Zuma showed little regard for a nation that has been thrust into crisis as a result of his actions. He claimed to be acting to give younger politicians an opportunity – a claim as preposterously disingenuous as his proclaimed objective of “radical economic transformation”.

The fact is, the first people standing in line for radical economic benefits are the president, his family and cronies, seen or unseen.

But the serious question that must be asked, considering how far Zuma has pushed his agenda, is how far this master strategist will be prepared to go to safeguard his interests.

Yesterday IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who dealt with Zuma way back in the days preceding apartheid, stressed the need for extreme caution. If the ANC believed itself to be under siege, there could be bloodshed, he said.

The ANC has one final chance to redeem itself – it must recall Zuma.