Daily Dispatch

Unknown cost of change

PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma appears not to grasp the irony in his antidemocratic stance towards the ± 30 ANC MPs who voted against him in last week’s no confidence vote.

There he was on Monday – the same man for whom the ANC turned a blind eye after the Constitutional Court found he was in violation of his constitutional obligations – unblushing in demanding retribution against the ANC MPs who voted against him. He wants them disciplined because they “violated the ANC constitution”.

It hardly needs to be said that principle requires consistent application. If not, it is merely a convenient bludgeon in the hands of a hypocritical opportunist.

But that, of course, is exactly what our president has revealed himself to be.

He fails to understand that principle is meaningless when one’s own actions do not line up with it.

He is incapable of drawing a line between his personal interest and the national one.

And the only thing consistent about Zuma’s leadership is his steadfast disinclination to distinguish right from wrong.

But the more worrying aspect of Zuma riding roughshod over principle this week was his sinister undertone.

This former ANC head of intelligence and one-time commander of the organisation’s brutal concentration camp in exile did not even bother to pretend at democratic sensibilities. He brazenly tossed such niceties aside – if at all he ever had them.

Those who voted against him needed to be weeded out and dealt with. Period.

That the leader of a governing party in a so-called constitutional democracy deemed it fit to send such an iron-fisted message in public is frankly frightening. What are citizens to expect next? And how far exactly will Jacob Zuma go to look after his own interest?

Throughout his presidency he has made a series of missteps, each more monstrous than the previous. In behaving as he has, Zuma has demonstrated two things: that his conscience is entirely seared and that he is incapable of making good decisions.

This also applies to the 198 ANC MPs following blindly in his wake in parliament.

We now know without doubt that their reckless behaviour presents a clear danger to this country and its citizens. What we do not know is how far they will go in their refusal to respect morality or democracy.

That Zuma is so intent on vengeance that he is willing – just four months before the party’s elective conference – to drive even deeper the large cracks already evident in the ANC is astonishing.

But perhaps there is value in the events of the past week. It lies in having made one thing absolutely clear – that the ANC has no chance of reprieve or redemption. Salvation can never come from a tinpot kleptocrat nor those willing to feed his appetites or those of his friends. The once mighty ANC is, as analyst Mcebisi Ndletyana said on this page yesterday, “a party of the past”.

Change must come, and it must include change to the country’s electoral laws.

What is not known about the current equation is what it will take to move South Africa into the future.