Torrid week for ‘Mr Zupta’

Flypasts, 21-gun salutes and ostentatious fashion statements by preening MPs. The opening of parliament with its State of the Nation Address (Sona) is one of those political rituals that has always mattered more to the participants than it does to ordinary citizens.

That was until 2015, the first Sona after the May 2014 general election in which the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) won its first seats and burst into parliament, turning everything topsy-turvy. The most memorable aspect to 2014’s Sona had been a minister who inexplicably chose to dress up as a South African Airways pilot. But 2015 was a humdinger — red-overalled EFF MPs being forcibly removed from the chamber by police, flying fists, a walkout by opposition MPs, the “inadvertent” jamming of the cellphone signal.

Against that dramatic backdrop, Sona 2016 was always going to be closely watched, albeit only for the entertainment it might provide. But public interest was further stimulated by a growing sense of national crisis and the need for President Jacob Zuma to, just this once, provide some inspirational leadership.

There was also the reality that while much was hoped for from Zuma, he would, in fact, enter the National Assembly arena politically weaker than he has been at any time since being fired by Thabo Mbeki in 2005. Zuma had recently made a series of miscalculations that damaged his country, his party and himself.

It started with the firing of respected finance minister Nhlanhla Nene and then, in the face of a currency meltdown, a humiliating climbdown. Last week, hoping to avoid simi- lar humiliation in the Constitutional Court, he backtracked on two years of intransigence, suddenly offering to pay back a portion of the state expenditure on his private home at Nkandla.

So when Zuma swept down the red carpet and into the National Assembly on Thursday night, no amount of pomp and circumstance could disguise that this was man who had been taking a political battering. Outside in the streets, riot police kept demonstrators under control with razor wire and the occasional stun grenade.

Inside the chamber, Zuma’s only protection was Speaker Baleka Mbete’s nifty but procedurally suspect footwork in suspending the parliamentary rules on points of order, to try to prevent the EFF from constantly interrupting the president. The ploy was only partly successful, with Sona running an hour late and Congress of the People and the EFF eventually walking out. EFF leader Julius Malema found a new moniker with which to torment Zuma, “Mr Zupta”, referring to the president’s controversial relationship with the wealthy Gupta family.

Given all the expectations, Sona was perhaps doomed to be a damp squib. Zuma might be a singing sensation when he belts out Umshini Wami – Bring me my machine gun – at ANC gatherings, but he is a lacklustre public speaker.

And Sona’s content, largely focused on the economy in the hopes of saving SA from another credit ratings downgrade, didn’t help him.

There was nothing much new and while the sentiments expressed would meet with broad investor approval, there was no new sense of urgency to persuade sceptics that this time around, the government would not only talk, but also act.