Daily Dispatch
Ex-tsunami in eye of storms
WITH mopping up still under way after two devastating hurricanes in the US and Caribbean, a third – Hurricane Jose – was yesterday bearing down on the east coast of the US, making the 2017 hurricane season the worst in history.
It’s a mercy South Africa isn’t prone to such horrible storms, but our country suffers turbulence in other ways, particularly in the sphere of politics and government.
And yesterday started with a particularly fierce wind of change howling across an already unstable ANC in KwaZulu-Natal.
Pietermaritzburg High Court Judge Jerome Mnguni had been asked to consider the outcome of the ANC’s eighth provincial elective conference in November 2015 – had it been rigged. He ruled that all the decisions taken at that conference were null and void. This was where an anti-Zuma leadership had been ousted and replaced by President Jacob Zuma’s allies.
The pro-Zuma faction has said it will appeal the ruling, but exactly how the situation will play out in the lead up to the party December elective conference remains to be seen.
The case nevertheless lays bare the depth of the division in the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal and could in fact impact the race for leadership of the party and the nation.
The ANC’s biggest membership base is in KZN and that leadership is likely to have considerable sway at the December conference – if it speaks with one voice.
The possible repercussions of yesterday’s ruling do not stop there. The calls for calm that came so quickly in the wake of the ruling signalled just how combustible the situation is in a province characterised by political assassination.
On top of all that any benefit that might have accrued to the KZN ANC through the province being home to Zuma [and his chosen successor, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma], may now in fact, be turning into a liability. Last week’s Kantar TNS survey showed Zuma’s performance approval rating dropping to a new low of 18%.
But that is not the only storm enfolding the President. His decision to oppose the recommendation by the former public protector Thuli Madonsela for the Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng to appoint a judge to preside over an inquiry into her “State of Capture” report is currently being challenged by the DA in Pretoria High Court.
Whether a president with a record of failing to uphold the constitution will manage to adequately explain why he has a problem with the Chief Justice selecting a judge for a mammoth corruption case also remains to be seen.
More so considering Zuma’s application for leave to appeal against a High Court judgment that found the decision to drop 783 charges against him of corruption, racketeering and money laundering relating to the Arms Deal was in fact, irrational. This will come before the Supreme Court of Appeal on Friday.
Between them Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have caused damage estimated at $200billion. Ironically Zuma was once referred to as a “tsunami”. Whether the self-made storms now coming against him will clear the air or cost the ANC and the country dearly, is impossible to say.