IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY
THE acclaimed American historian and author Arthur M Schlesinger jr coined the term the “Imperial Presidency.” In his book he expressed two profound concerns about democracy in the US: firstly, that the US presidency, particularly under former president Richard Nixon, had become uncontrollable and, secondly, that it had exceeded its constitutional limits. To a great extent, Schlesinger’s book was an incisive critique of the Nixon presidency involving the executive aggrandisement and abuse of power that became manifest flowing from the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s inglorious resignation as a result from the office of president.
In a similar vein, journalist and author Brian Pottinger wrote a celebrated account of the first 10 years of the presidency of PW Botha, recounting how an increasingly frustrated and besieged autocrat, designated by the press as “Groot Krokodil” (great crocodile), treated the highest and most esteemed political office in the land.
It is becoming increasingly clear that with President Jacob Zuma history appears to be repeating itself in a most bizarre and unsatisfactory manner. It has become manifestly clear, for instance, that Zuma does not consider himself bound by the ANC’s muchvaunted tradition of collective leadership.
This was apparent when ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe was left virtually speechless when asked to explain the 12th cabinet reshuffle to the media.
Zuma appears to justify his controversial reshuffles involving the firing and hiring of ministers by virtue of presidential prerogative.
Furthermore, the irrational and farcical arguments pursued by his lawyers in the high court last week in relation to the public protector’s report on state capture reflect a disregard for the constitutional obligations he has as president of the republic.
In all of this, Zuma is playing a dangerous and manipulative strategy to evade at every cost legal and constitutional accountability, as he has done in fighting off for years corruption charges until in September this year when he amazingly conceded in the Supreme Court of Appeal that the dropping of those 738 charges had indeed been irrational after all.
South Africans, having achieved and created an exemplary democratic system of government, premised on the values of equality, non-racialism and liberty for all, at a sublimely great cost, need to deepen it and extend its benefits to all the people of this land. What is not required is political expediency and naked political ambition, based on an irrational racial nationalism, as exemplified by the Zuma imperial presidency and all the maladministration and corruption that it encapsulates,
• George Devenish is a retired professor of Public Law and one of the scholars that assisted in drafting the Interim constitution of 1994