The week Zuma’s armour was penetrated

THE past week’s events demonstrated the scope and limitations of presidential power and gave us insight into how SA works and who wields influence. President Jacob Zuma’s announcement that he had removed Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister was notable for its brevity — 179 words. He did not feel the need to offer a reason for his decision, nor for his appointment of a backbencher. I have the prerogative, Zuma was saying, I am prepared to use it and I do not have to explain myself.

Much of the analysis has focused on what this tells us about Zuma: his failure to grasp the wider implications of what he was doing and the suspicion that this was being done for self-serving reasons. More interesting was what the unfolding events told us about the workings of our democracy: how decisions are made, who can influence them, who chooses to speak out and how. To make the announcement without bothering to give reasons was an act of authoritarianism.

The fundamental principle of democracy is that information is required to allow decisions to be questioned and challenged. It is written into our Constitution and administrative law, which set out our right to reasons for decisions that affect us, so that we can hold decisionmakers to account.

It quickly became clear that the announcement was even more shockingly arbitrary as Zuma had not consulted his own Cabinet, party or allies. This from a president who has frequently extolled the importance of collective decision-making and responsibility.

There followed two days of near-silence from the Presidency, governing party and its allies, as a tsunami of shock and horror built up in traditional and social media. By Friday, the Presidency felt enough public pressure to issue a flurry of statements that attempted to offer an explanation. The first, at 567 words, was three times the length of the original announcement.

It fell flat, mostly because his assurances of government’s fiscal responsibility had been dispelled by all the available evidence. He had to issue an even longer one, 604 words, that took on some of the “malicious rumours” that suggested the decisions were based on “inappropriate” relationships. This was looking desperate. There is no better way to spread a damaging rumour than to deny it in a formal statement.

On Sunday, some of the country’s most powerful insider bankers (those with African National Congress links), notably Barclays’s Maria Ramos and Goldman Sachs’s Colin Coleman, met senior ANC members. Within hours, the decision was reversed and the country had its third finance minister in five days. Zuma had shown that he was vulnerable to the very symbols of capital he is normally so contemptuous of. His apparent invincibility within the party had disintegrated.

A day later, the troops were trotted out at Luthuli House to try show that the ANC was behind Zuma, and that all was well. Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe, ANC deputy secretary-general Jesse Duarte and the Congress of South African Trade Unions’s Sdumo Dlamini all looked weary, half-hearted and unconvincing. Radebe told us “a listening ANC had heard the cries of the people”, but did not say which people. Was it the media or the bankers?

On the internet, you can watch Duarte’s eyes as she says Zuma showed “strong leadership”. Hold on, you can’t. She is looking down, carefully reading prepared remarks. Perhaps most extraordinary was Dlamini’s support for the return of Pravin Gordhan to the finance ministry, considering how critical Cosatu had been of his policies during his previous term of office. You have to ask: are these just loyalists who can be relied on to stick to the script? Or has Zuma used whatever strange power he has over otherwise strong ANC leaders to pull them into line?

Harber is Caxton professor of journalism at Wits.

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