Negotiated regime and leadership

TO START with a curious etymology, the term “negotiation” has as its root a Latin term otium, meaning “ease or leisure”, the overall sense being that negotiation is a long and arduous process, without relaxation. So it usually is. There was a time, a short while ago, when the Zexit negotiations seemed to be floundering. And then one magical midnight former president Jacob Zuma was gone and the transition began in earnest.

This involved disinfecting the cabinet of the Zupta infiltration and restoring those unjustly, arbitrarily and disastrously removed in Zuma’s reign. The cliché “what a difference a week makes in politics” was never more dramatically evident.

What really happened during the last days of Zuma is not really known, like most things in the upper echelons of the divided ruling party.

The same is true of the final days of former president Thabo Mbeki. In both cases there was no recorded vote. It seemed decisions were made in smoky rooms late at night as opposing factions lobbied and bullied.

The outcome could not be called a triumph for democracy or the constitution, but a victory for the ANC. The holder of the highest office in the nation had been removed, not by the people, but by the party.

Geoff Hughes is an emeritus professor formerly with Wits University.