A woman proxy only perpetuates our problems
TOWARDS the end of their time in office, both Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma promoted the idea that a woman should be their successor.
This, despite their vast differences in terms of intellect (one believes he is the smartest person in Africa, the other treats “clever” people with disdain), and personality (aloofness versus gregariousness).
Progressives across SA would support this proposal. But what is uncanny is that in trying to manipulate the appointment of their successor, both Mbeki and Zuma supported the same woman – Nkosazana DlaminiZuma.
Although thinking and raising critical issues are increasingly being frowned upon by the ruling ANC government since the Mbeki era because of a central, controlling tendency, (as well as the insecurity of the former incumbent), the inquiring mind inevitably poses the question: why the same candidate? Perhaps the former public protector, Thuli Madonsela, has the answer: “I would love to have a female president, but not a female who is a proxy. That makes her worse than a man.”
In an interview with SABC, Jacob Zuma said: “It is no longer a discussion in the ANC whether a woman can take a high leadership position or not. The ANC is ready for that. In fact the party has been ready for some time.”
The Economist cynically suggested that “divorcing couples usually squabble over custody of the children. Jacob Zuma seems to be wondering how to share custody of the country.”
Of course, the ANC has decreed, at least in theory, that there should be no public or private debates about President Zuma’s successor, and there is a naive belief that the flock will obey (does anyone take the dictates of the ANC seriously these days?).
In practice, two candidates are already in the running: Cyril Ramaphosa, who has the backing of Cosatu, ANC veterans and the SACP; and Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, who is supported by the ANC Youth League, ANC Women’s League, KwaZulu-Natal Province, and apparently the Guptas (guaranteed success or the kiss of death?) and is anointed by the president himself.
Outsiders in the race include Zweli Mkhize (touted as a deputy to Ramaphosa), Jeff Radebe, and Baleka Mbete. Kgalema Motlanthe is (yet again) viewed as a possible compromise candidate.
Recently, Gwede Mantashe publicly expressed an interest in the position. In grand ANC tradition, the smear campaigns and rumour mills are in overdrive. There are already suggestions Mbete is terminally-ill and Ramaphosa is a “puppet of the Jews”.
The ghosts of Marikana will also continue to haunt Ramaphosa’s campaign.
The main contenders are almost evenly matched, and both have impeccable Struggle credentials. Ramaphosa is a lawyer by training, a founding member of the National Union of Mineworkers, and played a leading role in the Mass Democratic Movement. He was secretary-general of the ANC when Mandela was president.
When Mandela chose Thabo Mbeki as his deputy, and heir apparent, Ramaphosa quit politics for the world of business.
He returned to active politics as deputy president of South Africa in May 2014. The intention of his backers in the ANC was that Ramaphosa would plug the weaknesses of Zuma, which were increasingly becoming apparent by the end of the latter’s first term. No doubt, the grand plan was that Ramaphosa would automatically succeed Zuma.
But the Zuma camp are afraid Ramaphosa is unlikely to protect Zuma from the 783 charges and possible imprisonment, should he ascend the throne.
Speaking at the Limpopo Economic Summit in Polokwane in November 2016, Ramaphosa said: “Good governance must mean we have cut our links with corruption… that we have rooted out people who are corrupt… delaying actions against corruption brings cancer, and make it bigger, and bigger…”
At the 22nd anniversary commemoration of former SACP leader Joe Slovo’s death, Ramaphosa warned that: “Buying of votes at conferences, the capture of our branches, must be in the past. The ANC is not for sale… it’s priceless and belongs to our people. For those who may want to sell the ANC, or a portion of it, just know that it is not for sale.”
The main reason the Zuma camp favours Dlamini Zuma is because she would not want her former husband and father of her four children to go to jail. In addition to her anti-apartheid struggle credentials, she is viewed as a seasoned politician, having served under all South Africa’s post-1994 presidents as the minister of health, foreign affairs, and home affairs, respectively. For good measure, she served a term as the head of the AU.
But Dlamini Zuma was implicated in one of the earliest post-apartheid corruption scandals, while she was in Mandela’s cabinet. Opposition parties were outraged that her department had awarded R14m to playwright Mbongeni Ngema for an HIV-Aids awareness project and the matter was investigated by public protector Selby Baqwa. The public protector concluded the “expenditure was unauthorised, the initiative mismanaged and that both Dlamini Zuma and her department’s director-general, Olive Shisana, had misled Parliament and the media.”
According to journalist Gareth van Olsen, the parallels between Sarafina and the Nkandla scandals were uncanny: “There’s the same, significant abuse of public money. The same poor tender processes. The same stonewalling and refusal to account before Parliament. The same smears of the opposition and the media. The same blind political support. The same kind of adverse finding from the public protector that led to no meaningful consequence. Ultimately, the same warping of Parliament to the ANC’s will.”
Beyond South Africa, Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, former chairperson of the Nigerian National Human Rights Commission, was scathing in his assessment of Dlamini Zuma’s term as head of the AU, during which the continent faced manifold challenges:
“Whether it was the Ebola outbreak, drowning of African refugees in the Mediterranean, famines, the return of the god-president, the International Criminal Court or popular uprisings by young people demanding revolutionary change, the out-going chairperson of the AU Commission failed Africa… On each of these challenges, Dr Dlamini Zuma was out to lunch or blissfully missing in action.
“Under her watch, the god-president returned. In Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Chad and Uganda, elected presidents tore up the constitutions under which they were elected and installed themselves as gods. In Burundi, where another president’s desire for god-presidency turned murderous, Dlamini Zuma conveniently outsourced her responsibilities and disappeared… Two years after she was elected to chairperson of the AU, Dlamini Zuma allowed her ex-husband to put her name forward on the ANC’s list for the 2014 general election in South Africa. It became evident that Addis Ababa was, from the start, a place to cool her heels, preserve herself and prepare to collect South Africa’s highest political prize…
“Dr Dlamini Zuma didn’t know Africa and only cared about her ambitions back home. She just didn’t care about the African. As Dr Dlamini Zuma slinks back to the deepening sleaze that threatens to unravel her march to the prize… she treasures above the lives of ordinary Africans, many will be forgiven for screaming ‘good riddance, Mrs Dlamini Zuma!’”
You have been warned.