Send Zuma to Nkandla
THE ANC national executive committee (NEC) met for its ordinary meeting at Irene near Pretoria yesterday. While this is a scheduled meeting, it is an important one as it precedes the governing party’s annual January NEC Lekgotla which will start today, ending tomorrow.
Unlike ordinary NEC meetings which are attended by the 86 elected members, the NEC Lekgotla – which discusses the government programme for the year ahead –includes mayors of metros, ministers, premiers and senior government officials.
The ordinary NEC meeting is expected to deal with a number of topical issues that currently dominate the national discourse. Chief among them will be a discussion on the future of President Jacob Zuma as the head of state.
Another matter for the meeting will be a postmortem of the recent 106-year celebrations of the governing party, which were held in East London last week.
The recent court rulings which nullified the provincial conferences of KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State will also be on the table.
It is this meeting which will determine whether Zuma will deliver the State of the Nation Address in Cape Town next month.
Basically, this NEC meeting will be the truest test of whether new ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa has the mettle to deal with the scandal-prone Zuma.
Ramaphosa has already indicated that Zuma’s days may be numbered, but said that the issue of his recall was a delicate matter that needed to be handled in a way that did not “humiliate” Zuma.
Speaking in a post-January 8 TV interview, Ramaphosa said: “Whatever we do we need to deal with this matter with the level of maturity it requires, with the proper decorum and I will say we should never do it in a way that is going to humiliate President Zuma.”
It is difficult to imagine anything that can be done to humiliate Zuma, who has been able to sully – through his ceaseless blunders and scandals – not only his own name but also that of the ANC and of the country.
The booing of Zuma by a large section of the crowd at the ANC’s birthday celebrations gave the clearest indication that he has even lost favour with the party’s rank and file. This is significant as South Africans had been made to believe that Zuma draws his strength from the support he enjoys from the party’s ordinary members and supporters – who make up the millions of ANC voters.
It is obvious now that he is no longer only a problem for the middle-class and the rich, but is also seen as a burden by the poor.
This is reason enough – putting aside all his other scandals – why Zuma should not deliver the State of the Nation Address next month. No one will believe anything that comes out of his mouth.
He has lost the respect and the confidence of the people of this country – the kind of respect that is accorded a deserving head of state. He has nothing more to contribute. His continued stay has the potential to further erode the ANC’s already dwindling support base.
The ANC NEC must do the right thing and send Zuma back to Nkandla.