Zeitgeist of a nation that can’t even
The theatrics inside and outside Parliament were a telling barometer of the citizenry’s discontent
On Thursday the streets of Cape Town became a real-life illustration of the intractable political shambles into which President Jacob Zuma would later step: a furious, roiling mess of competing interests sometimes just barely under control — and sometimes not quite that.
Men preened and women posed on the red carpet, seemingly oblivious to the marches outside. As preliminary State of the Nation proceedings got underway inside the parliamentary precinct, clashes broke out between riot police and demonstrators.
The opposition-run City of Cape Town granted permission for three marches or gatherings on Thursday, variously supporting the Democratic Alliance, the Economic Freedom Fighters and the Ses’khona People’s Rights Movement. A group demand- ing the speeding up of land restoration for former District Six residents also marched, and the Pan Africanist Congress, the #RhodesMustFall and #ZumaMustFall movements made showings too. The ANC’s presence was relatively modest in comparison.
Ses’khona’s tactics are a close cousin of those employed by the EFF in Parliament: the group gained notoriety in 2013 when members dumped human faeces on the steps of the Western Cape legislature.
To placate just the interest groups represented on the streets around the precinct and inside the ring of steel around it, Zuma would have to resign, pay the state tens of millions of rands, reverse recent pension fund reforms, expropriate property (preferably without compensation), deport some of his friends, dismantle black economic empowerment and make tertiary education free.
But for his most important State of the Nation address to date, Zuma’s two most important audiences were not on the streets of Cape Town at all. On the one hand, he again had to convince the members of the ruling alliance that he was more asset than liability going into local government elections. On the other, he had to convince investors and money managers around the world, and ratings analysts in particular, that South Africa will be on a sound fiscal footing in the immediate future.
At the fringes of those two groups were those with utterly irreconcilable expectations. The left of the alliance sought a commitment to even higher levels of social spending and wages for civil servants. The conservative end of the investor community wanted austerity and privatisation.
That they all looked to the same event for their incompatible answers is Zuma’s own doing. Until 2009 the State of the Nation address was aimed at Parliament rather than the nation. But in 2010 Zuma changed it from a work-hours affair to an evening address to the nation.
That he is perceived to be weaker than ever is also his own doing. With or without his concessions before the Constitutional Court this week, Zuma’s handling of the Nkandla affair has inflated the scandal around his home. His December decision to fire his finance minister for no obvious reason and so trigger a crisis of confidence was apparently his alone, unsupported and not canvassed even in his inner circle.
That the various crises and issues facing the country had been personalised around Zuma was only partially his own fault, though. Insiders say it is presumed that Zuma would not take kindly to being pushed into the background in favour of, say, Cyril Ramaphosa, to avoid having his vulnerabilities transferred to the party. But the matter has never overtly arisen in party structures.
At the same time, the EFF’s apparently savant-like genius for capturing the national mood and direct it has built on the DA’s years of vilifying Zuma.