When Zuma goes, what will change?
What at least seems clear is that the ANC won’t recall JZ before it has chosen a new party leader
Corruption has many forms and motivations, but in the cases related to President Jacob Zuma, the alleged offences are much along the lines of Nigerian academic Peter Ekkeh’s “two publics” theory of the 1970s.
Interpreted simplistically, it views primordial esteem in exchange for morally obliged material contributions as the key motivation for postcolonial corruption in those most disadvantaged by colonial government in Africa — that is, nonbourgeois black Africans.
The corruption is manifested when the material contributions are funded by illegal exploits in the public realm, whose institutions are perceived to confer rights without any moral obligation or benefit of identity or psychological security.
With South Africa’s post-apartheid political economy yet to transcend the legacies of its minority-governed and colonial past, this contextualisation is important in trying to calculate scenarios for the future of the ANC and the country.
Recently we saw the release of the report on an investigation into state capture allegations by the outgoing public protector, Thuli Madonsela. It recommended the institution of an independent commission of inquiry, headed by an appointee of the chief justice, who should be adequately resourced and free to appoint his or her own staff.
This is a serious development and its political significance could have been diminished but for a series of developments that have led to Zuma’s political weakening since the 2014 election.
The Economic Freedom Fighters, #FeesMustFall, Nkandla, Nenegate, the court finding that the 783 armsdeal-related charges against Zuma should not have been dropped by the National Prosecuting Authority, and the outcome of the local government elections — all have played their part.
There is also a significant reduction in open support for the president from within ANC structures. There has even been open opposition from former allies as his alienation of top elected officials and his much decreased ability to anoint a successor, effect Cabinet changes, dispense patronage or influence policy and decisions has become increasingly apparent.
The president’s camp has amply demonstrated its desperation. There have been reckless attempts by his perceived allies to mount legal chal- lenges against the release of the public protector’s report on the investigation into state capture. We have seen aggressive legal correspondence by the Gupta family that appears to be an attempt to intimidate Madonsela into not releasing her report. These panicked attempts were perceived to climax with the preference of baseless corruption charges against the minister of finance in another apparent attempt to pave the way for his removal.
At present, Zuma has just less than three weeks within which to appoint the commission of inquiry recommended by the public protector, which would then have an additional six months to complete its work. It is not unlikely that the president, or parties still aligned to him, may mount some legal challenges to the recommendations, such as pushing for a judicial review.
But such challenges would come at great political risk to Zuma and his allies, because each botched attempt of this kind has served to weaken him and to harden political attitudes against him from within and outside his political faction and his party.
It is unlikely that he will attempt a scorched-earth strategy to try to remain in office, as some analysts have suggested. The institutional room for it does not exist. It is also unlikely that Zuma will remove the ministers who are seen as Guptaconnected — Mosebenzi Zwane (mineral resources) and Des van Rooyen (co-operative governance) — for fear of implicating himself and turning what remains of his support inside the ANC against him.
If anybody is likely to be thrown under the bus to ameliorate some pressure on the president in a show of his willingness to protect the institutions of democracy from abuse, it will be the national director of public prosecutions, Shaun Abrahams.
On the ANC’s part, large tracts of the ruling party’s structures remain disoriented. Of the candidates to succeed Zuma as president of the ANC, Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa seems most likely to emerge as the strongest opponent to the Zuma camp’s favourite, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the outgoing chairperson of the African Union Commission and a former wife of the president. Of the others, ANC treasurer general Zweli Mkhize is the strongest, and could seek to capitalise on formerly Zumasupporting as well as anti-Zuma factions in the ANC.
There is unlikely to be much appetite for the removal of Zuma as the president of the country before his replacement as president of the ANC. At the very best, the ANC may seek to move its elective conference, scheduled for December 2017, forward by as much as six months to save itself the embarrassment of being stuck with Zuma after a commission of inquiry has completed its work.
Of course, the ANC’s continued tolerance of the president will depend on his willingness to co-operate while still in office.
In terms of any material effect on policy, the best place would be to start with what the Zuma presidency has meant for the tensions between Ekkeh’s “two publics”, as manifested in the ANC. These differences were doubtless present in the ANC before Zuma’s ascent but were arguably brought to a head under his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, whose policies were seen to promote inequality rather than ameliorating it.
Zuma was fired from his position as deputy president by Mbeki in 2005 as a result of his being implicated in arms-deal corruption, but he was subsequently carried to victory by a “coalition of the wounded”. They fomented a personality cult around Zuma and promoted a culture of anti-intellectualism to bolster their stalking horse and neutralise Mbeki’s supporters.
Importantly, they found that once Zuma had reached his political zenith — at the 2012 ANC electoral conference when he trounced his former deputy, the intellectual Kgalema Mothlanthe, and had the ANC national executive committee comprehensively stacked in his favour — his primordial preoccupations rather than his factional interests would drive his presidential agenda.
The course has probably now been set for a succession battle that will take place on a more rational basis than has been the case with policy discourse in the ANC over the past few years.
Particular vested interests are likely to have smaller sway over energy policy and state procurement. In time, this may even see a willingness to unbundle the interests of state-owned entities to draw in private investment in energy generation and transport infrastructure.
Growing inequality and the slow pace of drawing a large population of black people into shared prosperity are likely to ensure that black economic empowerment and employment equity remain top of the agenda.
The disaggregation in politics, organised business and organised labour has paved the way for tentative structural reform of the economy through some agreement on auditable strike balloting as an effective quid pro quo for the setting of minimum wages. The markets, which have stepped forward as a guarantor of democracy, have in no small measure helped it along, not only in demanding such reform but also in calling out some of the institutional abuses we have seen under the Zuma government.
The degree to which these reforms accelerate will depend on the extent to which labour, business and government leaders start realising the need for dialogue about social reform that will avoid resorting to collective responsibility as a default position.
It should, instead, allow bottom-up pact-building between labour and business, from the plant or company level upwards, and institutionalise a relationship of accountability between business and labour on the one hand and government on the other.
Should this institutional reform not materialise, it is likely that South Africa’s ability to implement economic policy effectively and constructively will remain constrained.