ZUMA’S ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

SA’S politics have been recast in therhetoric of myth: Zuma as wise wizard; Zille as wicked witch of the Western Cape. The struggle for the soul of the nation has seemingly begu n ...

Jacob Zuma, our president, trying to work out last week how it is that the ANC keeps losing the Western Cape, said: “It’s witchcraft‚ you never know. Maybe even ghosts are voting.” It’s a right old conundrum, to be sure, but he got there in the end. Ghosts. Obviously.

A regular Gandalf, is our commander in chief, in perpetual battle with the agents of darkness. And that is a good thing. Because something wicked this way comes.

Or came. “It was as if we were bewitched,” Zuma said in June, when he was trying to work out why factions keep breaking away from the ANC. That particular spell is proving hard to break.

He lives in the republic of magic, does Zuma, a land of fantastical creatures — and he knows where to find them.

“They are sent by a zombie.” That’s Zuma again.

Those people upset with the ANC’S performance are clearly not of this world. The darkness has them.

But Zuma has endured. The force is strong with this one. There are those who don’t approve of our grand wizard. Fear not. “All of their plans, infused in Satanism at best, will never succeed in the future because their plans are nothing else but filled with evil.”

That was one of Zuma’s familiars, a young apprentice wizard by the name of Fikile Mbalula. He shows much promise.

How brave they are, these magical Padawans. How fiercely they defend their mentor. “The wish of those who are ruled by Satan will never happen,” said ethekwini mayor Zandile Gumede. She was right, too. The recent motion of no confidence against Zuma was crushed.

Along with the magic protection Zuma provides comes the ANC’S eternal vigilance. It’s an army of ghost-busters, always on the alert.

Why is there any confusion over the choice we face? Who would knowingly choose the darkness over the light? “Voting ANC is like opening the gates to heaven; if you do not vote ANC, it’s like choosing to be with the devil,” Zuma has said. So it is written.

The ANC’S Tandi Mahambehlala told parliament: “We have heard from some of them about their ‘Holy Land’, called Western Cape. But this province is far from holy — it is, in fact, where evil finds refuge.”

It is a cesspool of malevolence, this “Western Cape”. The seventh circle of hell. The ANC’S influence ends at its borders; wander into the Western Cape and you will be seduced.

“This thing of witchcraft is when a witch does nothing for the people but they still get re-elected. This is what we find ourselves in here in the Western Cape. We are being governed by witches,” said Mbalula.

And Helen Zille, the wicked witch of the west, is evil incarnate — irredeemable. “Zille is a witch, the witch rides a baboon,” protestors sang about her in 2013. Her magic did not work on them. They could see the Devil’s true form.

But then there is Zuma: the light and the way. There is another world out there — one only the ANC can see. So while we walk this mortal plane, the party is waging a different war on our behalf: a spiritual war against unseen creatures of the night.

In 2015 they struck. Zuma had to be escorted from a field while attending the reed dance ceremony in Kwazulu Natal, a ritual to the old gods. The king’s speech was interrupted by women crying uncontrollably, swarming towards the grand wizard, hysterical. They were being attacked by demons. “Some of you came here with evil spirits to spoil this event,” the king said. Once Zuma was safe, religious leaders were called in to pray away the sin.

It takes many forms, this evil. “There is a need to confront the demon of racism,”

Zuma has said. Prejudice is not a human condition — it is to be possessed.

It makes sense, then, that in 2012 Zuma should have called for a national cleansing ceremony. Alas, it never happened. The result is what you see around you. We are all to blame.

“When he was still on earth the sinners were not as many as they are now. He must come again to deal with us and cleanse us,” Zuma pleaded with the one force he seems to answer to. But the Son of Man has maintained silence. He seems merely to watch on.

It is a lonely road Zuma travels. But he remains undeterred.

If you were to be cruel, you could say his particular brand of magic is ineffectual. He is befuddled by the Western Cape; confounded by factionalism; confused by the animosity he encounters. By his own standards, he has not yet managed to solve some of the greatest spiritual mysteries.

But he has his allies — true believers. And what a team they make. He gets a bad rap, does Zuma. Gauged against irrelevancies like the constitution, the rule of law, accountability, even democracy itself, he falls short time and time again.

But it is an unfair test — he is fighting far grander forces than that. We should show a little more respect.

SA is a democracy on paper. Many a fine word has been written on its nature and form. But one needs to look beyond that to appreciate the magical constitution the ANC is really fighting to defend.

It doesn’t turn on human rights or legislation, delivery or freedom, but on good and evil, ghosts and zombies.

There are many who see the world just as Zuma does. They stand with him. Their vote is a blood oath — a spiritual bond — and neither reason nor rationality can break it.

Be thankful. They keep us safe from things that go bump in the night.

What it means: Under pressure, Jacob Zuma and his acolytes are turning to a narrative of good and evil, ghosts and zombies