More leaks loom as ANC power face-off foments
WHO has the power? Last weekend’s ANC national executive committee meeting failed to provide a one-line answer to this simple question. Perhaps it deserves a more complex one.
What is certain is that power is draining from the office of President Jacob Zuma with alarming speed. Yes, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe stated that the party stood by Zuma after the committee meeting. But, a year ago, it would have been unthinkable for long-standing ANC personalities such as Mcebisi Jonas, Vytjie Mentor and Themba Maseko to publicly criticise the presidency.
How times have changed. Not only have they openly criticised the Gupta family and, by implication, the president, but they have survived censure for stepping outside the tent.
This has shifted Zuma’s defences from the party’s walls to the more open territory of public disclosure, where his flanks are exposed.
The ANC gave Zuma its passiveaggressive “support” in the official statement after the meeting, but the whistleblowers were praised. Mantashe went so far as to say there was no reason to criticise Jonas; he had done “the honourable thing”. And the party has launched an “investigation”, to be conducted by Mantashe’s office, into “state capture”. This opens the door for more criticism of Zuma.
With a beady eye on a post-Zuma administration, there must be many in the ANC who will see this as an opportunity to put some distance between themselves and the now-toxic Zuma presidency. Expect a long line at the confessional.
What is the likely outcome of this process? There are some who believe Zuma is off the hook and some who think Mantashe will take this opportunity to fatally impale him.
What is more likely is a slow, long war of attrition as Mantashe builds up an incriminating file of evidence against Zuma, who, in turn, tries to fight back using the security agencies he controls.
Expect dirty tricks, leaked intelligence reports and countless off-the-record leaks.
It has always been Zuma’s plan to bend the criminal justice system to his will, and this has become more urgent than ever now that there is the very real possibility of new criminal activity being exposed.
This is about Zuma’s conduct since taking office, and concerns the channelling of state business in the direction of his cronies.
The Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act is a fantastic piece of legislation, which is probably why it has gone largely unenforced since it was passed in 2004. Under this, all that has to be proved is that a Zuma family member gained something because Papa advantaged the Guptas.
Zuma can no longer rely on the party’s omertà code.
Suspect acts are now being placed on the record day by day, so his only option is to control who prosecutes whom for what, and whom the Hawks arrest and for what. The offensive results are frightening as Zuma seeks to turn the security apparatus against his enemies within and without the party.
And so you have the Hawks investigating Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, leaking stories aimed at undermining him and even threatening his arrest.
And you have the break-in at the Helen Suzman Foundation days after it sought an interdict declaring the head of the Hawks, Berning Ntlemeza, unfit for office. There was also the chilling warning by women’s league president Bathabile Dlamini that ANC members had best fight their battles “not through shouting outside because all of us in the NEC have our small skeletons and we don’t want to take out all skeletons”.
Was this a warning shot about what might be in Zuma’s files on the criminal activities of ANC leaders? How far Zuma will take this security war on his opponents is unclear, but billions of rands are at stake, and powerful people stand to lose all. The phoney war is over. Zuma is fighting one last battle, one he must win if he is to avoid the cold comforts of jail.
Hartley is editor of the Rand Daily Mail online and author of “Ragged Glory: The Rainbow Nation in Black and White”