Recall is a quick fix but wise voting is the long-term solution

IT’S open season on President Jacob Zuma. Everything bar the kitchen sink is being thrown at him — dead man walking, damaged goods, the works.

And his usually trigger-happy army of one-eyed apologists is uncharacteristically quiet.

It’s not always good form to kick a man when he’s down. But we do it anyway.

There’s no doubt that politically Zuma is mortally wounded. Events will determine how long he hangs around. If he does stay, the stench of the rot will continue to poison the country’s prospects.

Pravin Gordhan’s return to his old haunt is a holding operation. It doesn’t completely restore the trust that is lost. It merely ensures that the can is kicked down the road.

For in dismissing Nhlanhla Nene, Zuma didn’t just remove one man from a position. He tore into shreds a compact between not only the government and its people but with the international community, the other arm of the triad. That bond of trust, painstakingly put together over years, has unravelled. It will take years to knit together again.

One, however, cannot be certain that a chastened Zuma, shorn of his authority, has learnt anything from his foolhardiness. This week he sent out a gaggle of ANC toadies to lie to the country. A day after Nene’s dismissal, Jeff Radebe told the media that the issue was never raised at the cabinet meeting held only hours before Zuma pulled the trigger. No one contradicted his version.

Yet this week, Jessie Duarte, with Radebe sitting next to her, said Zuma had informed ANC officials about Nene’s supposed redeployment. She also tried to make out as if David van Rooyen was some unappreciated rough diamond. She’s lucky she’s not in the used-car business. Customers would give her a wide berth.

It’s not in Zuma’s nature to admit or learn from his mistakes. One would have expected, for instance, that, having successfully contrived to ditch the caravan of scandals that dogged him before taking office — a rape trial, corruption charges, et cetera — he would, once in power, have been extremely careful not to be involved in more shenanigans, or try to atone for his sins. Instead, he saw such an escape as some kind of vindication that gave him even more licence to go on a corruption binge.

One cannot but be sympathetic to calls for Zuma to be removed from office. But there’s a sobering message people need to take to heart. Choose wisely. They need to understand that, in voting during elections, they are making a bed for nobody but themselves. Nobody but they must lie on it. We cannot recall leaders each time they disappoint us or in an attempt to correct or upend election outcomes, without elections themselves losing their value or efficacy.

If Nelson Mandela had served a second term, somebody would probably have found a reason to recall him. They’re baying for his blood two years after his death.

But Zuma’s election was always an act of defiance against the sniffy elite, against the puritans among us. The revolt of the aggrieved and the marginalised was so powerful it propelled him against all odds. They cocked a snook at their betters. But Zuma’s stay in power remains a constant rebuke of the type of society we seek to become. Hopefully that experiment has now had its day.

As Zuma limps towards the end, there will be some notable victims, among them Nkosazana DlaminiZuma, his ex-wife, who’s nursing some ambition to succeed him. Zuma’s loss of influence means he can’t fix the presidency for her. She’s also the guarantor of Zuma staying out of jail.

The country now needs someone more capable than one just chanting a few slogans; more attuned to the economic realities of the world.

If Dlamini-Zuma’s chances have dimmed somewhat, Cyril Ramaphosa’s whispering campaign for the leadership must have got a lift. Suddenly his business background becomes an asset. He mysteriously went awol during the crisis, but his backers insist it was more strategic than cowardice.

Gordhan can hold the fort for the time being, but he won’t be able to turn the prevailing tide of anti-South African sentiment. What is required is not only a new leadership, but a new direction — a complete reassessment of the political and economic conditions that would set this country on a path to success.

It’s interesting that it was Cosatu, savage critic of the so-called Washington consensus, that was the first to meet Zuma to express concern over his moronic appointment. It is or was also the champion of a weaker currency. As they say: be careful what you ask for. You may just get it. And Cosatu’s got it in spades. Hopefully the penny has finally dropped.

Our salvation lies not in turning everybody into a ward of the state, but in prudent policies that attract the world to do business with us, thus growing the economy and creating jobs for our people.

If it’s able to drive that simple fact home, then the crisis will not have been in vain.

Zuma’s stay in power remains a constant rebuke of the type of society we seek to become

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