Hell-bent on defending Zuma
THE ANC is devouring itself by trying to protect one man, thanks to the debilitating effects of factional politics besetting the functional machinery of the organisation. President Jacob Zuma is protected by those closer to him in the NEC under the pretext that the organisation cannot afford another split.
This blind loyalty has been the ANC’s Achilles heel for some time and threatens to divide the once great movement down the middle, in the run-up to the watershed December congress.
In the latest NEC meeting, the organisation took a decision to keep the president until his term expired in the much-awaited congress.
As if that was not enough, the organisation warned of dire consequences to those who will vote against the party line in Parliament upon a motion of no confidence in the president. This decision can come back to haunt the ANC in the event that the erratic president is entangled in more unethical conduct which might warrant his cronies to jump to his defence before the conference.
The president is prone to scandals and this has been epitomised by the SACP general-secretary Blade Nzimande in his address to the 14th party congress. Congruent to the decision to keep him, the ANC might be forced to defend him in the event of any misdemeanour before conference.
This goes a long way in projecting the ANC, in the eyes of the voters as an arrogant party hell-bent on defending Jacob Zuma come hell or high water.
The voters’ recourse is in the universal suffrage guaranteed to the political trajectory by the ANC. They exercised this in the recent local government elections where the ANC suffered a humiliating defeat, for the first time since 1994, and lost some of the strategic metros.
The ANC could ignore the warning signs at its own peril if the recent local government elections were anything to go by. Joel Netshitenzhe likened the unconditional protection of the delinquent Zuma to a family trying to protect one of its members who committed a crime for the sake of unity. He argued that this act cannot be said to be in the name of unity but simply complicity to the crime.
The president has filed an application to review and set aside former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s State of Capture report. And lately the new public protector, advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane, in an unprecedented move, criticised the president and opined that the application lacks any prospect of success.
Mkhwebane also said that the president has no right to decide which judge will oversee the state capture inquiry.
The initiation of this investigation into state capture, which the public protector is more likely to order, will inevitably further bestow more troubles on Zuma. The proverbial chickens will come home to roost if the ANC NEC, this time around, will dare to protect Zuma on this one.
The ANC should self-correct and rejig its torpedoed image, to arrest the declining fortunes and public trust.
Zuma and his close confidantes consider all this to be vitriol by his detractors and go to the extent of employing conspiracy theories, by accusing the West of regime change agenda. If the West does not want him, and the SACP, which is an embodiment of communist ideology in the country, does not want him in their events, then who wants him? Tshisahulu, Vhembe Region, Limpopo