The Citizen (Gauteng)

Cyril has his work cut out

A liability to his party, the economy, the country, Zuma knows his time is up. His party knows his time is up, but the ingenious chess player will not leave easily.

- Rhoda Kadalie

As I write this column, I am watching a DVD of opera star Pretty Yende performing in 2009 at the Oude Libertas Theatre. Eight years later, the young diva is gracing the world’s stages with her talent. She got there having won many, many internatio­nal competitio­ns through hard work. I cannot help but compare her with her compatriot­s, similar ages and older, at the ANC conference, singing and stomping for hours waiting patiently for the election results, then a recount. To these comrades, time is not precious. They are like the FeesMustFa­ll students who consider it more important to march, picket and protest than it is to use precious time to study or do something productive.

Yende and her ilk have outgrown the ANC and their antiquaria­n political antics. If only party members served this country with the same energy expended at rallies, we wouldn’t be in the mess that we’re in.

The ANC is a colossal mess, epitomised by the mental, emotional and physical decline the party is in. Split into many factions, there are possibly three centres of power that poor Cyril Ramaphosa would have to cope with – between the endemicall­y corrupt, those who want some of the spoils and those who want to clean up.

Zuma’s palpable anger at having lost the election through his proxy, Nkosazana DlaminiZum­a, was clearly a mortal blow to his lifelong ambition to escape prosecutio­n. What now?

As my dad use to say, never forget the 13th commandmen­t – Be sure your sins will find you out. Amazingly, Zuma thought he would dodge the bullets until he dropped dead. Examples abound on our doorstep that power is transient.

Yet we refuse to learn. While everybody thought Robert Mugabe would never be defeated, his end finally came, and it wasn’t nice.

If Zuma had any sense he would abdicate now and save himself untold humiliatio­n. But as is his wont, he will fight to the bitter end to obtain amnesty. Earlier this year there was talk of giving Zuma R1 billion to retire so desperate was the elite to get rid of him.

A liability to his party, the economy, the country, Zuma knows his time is up. His party knows his time is up, but the ingenious chess player will not leave easily.

His call for free education was made precisely to destabilis­e the country under Ramaphosa’s leadership. It is Machiavell­ian to the extreme, considerin­g the consequenc­es of insourcing of non-academic staff and fee-free education have had on university balance sheets.

Now there is talk of expropriat­ion of land without compensati­on and the nationalis­ation of the central bank. Zuma’s disciples are circling the wagons, intent on showing Ramaphosa who is still in charge.

Based on his experience of African dictatorsh­ips, Ghanaian economist George Ayittey, avers that “dictators are allergic to reform, and they are cunning survivors. They will do whatever it takes to preserve their power and wealth, no matter how much blood ends up on their hands. They are master deceivers and talented manipulato­rs who cannot be trusted to change”.

Good luck to ANC president Ramaphosa as he tries to reverse the deeply embedded patronage and cronyism that has captured our state. He has his work cut out.

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