Zuma’s corrosive legacy is
He worked his way up from poverty and imprisonment for his political beliefs to become the country’s leader but he will be remembered for a presidency that hurt the people
It was during the course of the national executive committee (NEC) meeting on September 19 2008 that I came to appreciate what had led to Jacob Zuma’s victory over Thabo Mbeki in the contest for ANC presidency the previous year.
The ANC’s national conference at Polokwane in December 2007 had a number of novel features. Mbeki’s succession of Nelson Mandela in 1997 had been uncontested. In 2002 Mbeki was once again elected president unopposed. At the Polokwane conference two distinct slates contested the seats on the NEC. As Mbeki and Zuma mobilised their supporters for the express purpose of numerically dominating the executive that would emerge, two political camps had formed. For the first time since June 1991, an organised group of like-minded ANC members had gathered openly on the football field to agree on the list of candidates they would collectively support.
As the debate about Mbeki’s recall ebbed and flowed I was convinced that we had persuaded the majority to allow Mbeki to serve out the remainder of his term as president of South Africa. “It’s well-nigh impossible to defend Comrade Thabo,” one NEC member said to me during a tea break. “It’s not a matter of defending Mbeki,” I responded, “It’s upholding certain ANC practices. This is just vindictive.”
As those who felt they had been victimised by Mbeki during his term as ANC president took to the floor it became clear they were motivated by payback. Mbeki had antagonised a number of significant constituencies. Though most people knew that he had little respect for labour federation Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and the South African Communist Party’s Blade Nzimande, they had expected Mbeki to at least respect their offices. Three members of the NEC had been wrongly accused of plotting against him. That night those chickens came home to roost.
There was a near-palpable mood swing in the meeting as the aggrieved recounted deeply felt slights and perceived sufferings at Mbeki’s hands. The decision to recall Mbeki won overwhelming support and, as the minority, we were obliged to submit to it.
Slate politics resulted in an NEC dominated by Zuma’s supporters. The leadership of the ANC Youth League had passed from Fikile Mbalula to a reckless young man, Julius Malema. Though the women’s league had made noises about a woman president, they were content with Zuma.
Shocked by the outcome of the 2007 elective conference, a number of leading members of the ANC resigned to form the Congress of the People (Cope) in 2008. Cope attracted sufficient numbers to field candidates in the 2009 general elections.
The Polokwane conference institutionalised what had until then been a more or less shamefaced practice of circulating lists of preferred candidates. At Mangaung in 2012 and again at Nasrec, Johannesburg, in 2017, it was evident that the slate was now an accepted ANC practice and the supporters of such slates hold their own meetings on the fringes of a conference to take binding collective decisions.
The coalition that elected Zuma as ANC president has been characterised as an alliance of the wounded. It had virtually no supporters in the mainstream media and it was clear from the outset that it would be a battle to elect Zuma. Though the ANC’s share of the national vote had dropped from 2004, Zuma was elected president of the country with a 65% majority in 2009.
Good overshadowed by bad
Zuma’s presidency has been dogged by misfortunes, most of them selfinflicted. These have come so thick and fast that good policies the Zuma administration put into practice have gone largely unnoticed.
After a decade of Mbeki’s Aids denialism, the minister of health appointed by Zuma rolled out a comprehensive ARV distribution programme that has contained an epidemic that had resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths. Despite a lack-lustre foreign minister, during Zuma’s watch South Africa has acquired important foreign allies through the five main emerging economies, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and our foreign policy has been re-oriented with a powerful South-South bias.
The relationship that has received the most public notice is that between Zuma, members of his family and the Gupta family. With brazen presumption, the Guptas have flaunted their friendship with the Zuma family, specifically with the pater familiae himself. Even as more and more evidence emerged indicating a less than savoury relationship between the president and the Guptas, the actions of the Gupta family conspired to implicate him more seriously.
The influence this family exercised in government and over government officials became clear when a national keypoint, Waterkloof air base, was used as a reception point for the Gupta family’s wedding guests. Showing off their status as the ultimate insiders, the Guptas initiated negotiations with prospective ministers even prior to their appointment. The ostentatious conduct of the Guptas and the associations this family developed with the boards of a number of state-owned enterprises has resulted in allegations of state capture.
Though Zuma and his then deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe, repeatedly pronounced on the issue of corruption, the environment that evolved in and around the Zuma presidency emboldened and abetted the corrupt, not least owing to the business activities of those associated with the president himself.
Tensions among the ANC leadership and in government invariably found resonance among the membership. As 2012 approached, a slate in opposition to Zuma coalesced around Motlanthe.
Having initially given Zuma unstinting and vociferous support, people were surprised to see Malema lead a substantial number of the youth league out of the movement to found the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in 2013. The departure of the EFF was the second breakaway from the ANC during Zuma’s term of office.
Media and Constitution run-in
The media treated Zuma with great scepticism even before he was elected ANC president. The decade during which he had deputised for Mbeki in the ANC and the government saw clashes with the media about Zuma’s relationship with Schabir Shaik. That had resulted in Zuma’s dismissal as deputy president in 2006. Relations with the media deteriorated further when Zuma was charged with rape and his supporters pilloried his accuser.
At the best of times there is a tension between government and the media. In the United Kingdom a “gentlemen’s agreement” between government and the media keeps news that the government might find embarrassing out of the media. South African media, recently emancipated from decades of censorship and other repressions, observes no such restraints.
From the first months of 2008, the Zuma presidency sought to improve its media image. Its efforts were encumbered by a conference resolution calling for the establishment of a Media tribunal, which could adjudicate complaints against the media. In a number of meetings with the South African National Editors Forum Motlanthe was able to persuade the editors to re-examine their self-regulatory regime.
The crunch issue between the government and the media became the Protection of Information Bill, an official secrets Bill pioneered during Mbeki’s incumbency, that the media regarded as draconian. After heated public exchanges, the Bill was substantially altered though still not to the media’s satisfaction.
Suspicions about the Zuma presidency’s commitment to the Constitution and the protections it gave citizens deepened during the second five years of his incumbency. The Nkandla scandal involv-