Zuma’s brand of democracy

Zumacracy has a few rules, but they are exceedingly undemocratic, writes Onkgopotse JJ Tabane

ONE OF the most effective tools of analysis is the ability for introspection. A lot of our leaders fail dismally at this, and 2017 was no exception, when you consider the scandals engulfing President Jacob Zuma, Premier Helen Zille and mayor Patricia de Lille. I often wonder who advises these leaders, when they often fail at introspection, so publicly and spectacularly.

Zille and De Lille dragged the DA down with them, instead of just admitting their wrongs.

But, of course, outgoing ANC president Zuma gave a whole new meaning to head-in-the-sand politics throughout his term of office. Whether it was the Nkandla scandal or the state capture report, Zuma didn’t see that he had done anything wrong.

He has also been in every possible court of law because he won’t admit wrongdoing. And when he does admit he erred, it’s due to a court order of some kind, ordering him to do the right thing.

As was seen at the weekend conference, though, Zuma reached the zenith of his arrogance when he lectured all gathered about how they were all wrong and he was right. Zuma dished out his brand of democracy – Zumacracy.

Zumacracy 1: The ANC is above the law. According to Zuma, the ANC must ban members from approaching courts for reprieve when they are dissatisfied about internal processes.

I am well aware that Zuma is not learned, but surely his advisers should have told him that South Africa is a constitutional democracy and that his suggestion that anyone who approached the courts be expelled from the party was illegal and would amount to the ANC shredding its own constitution.

But there was no geese versus gander irony lost on the outgoing president, who has spent the past decade going from court to court, doing exactly what he wanted, and now wants to ban other citizens from also taking full advantage of our constitutional democracy.

Zumacracy 2: NGOs should not exist to criticise the government.

Zuma’s hopeless advisers should have whispered in his ear that NGOs stands for non-governmental organisations, and their job is to critique the government or compliment it, not worship it.

It looks as if Zuma wants a pliant civil society that should never march in the streets against his agenda.

Someone wake him up and point him to the almanac – it’s 2017, 23 years after the dawn of freedom day, which he often sings about, which allowed all sections of society to pursue whatever agenda they desired.

Zumacracy 3: Business must not be activists.

According to Zuma, business must be coy in the face of his destruction of the economy.

They must come to hapless meetings with him and be polite – he doesn't like the fact that some people in business have found their voice and are tired of standing on the sidelines while he wrecks all initiatives aimed at restoring investor confidence.

This can only be Zuma on a frolic of his own making, because a few months ago, Gwede Mantashe called on business “not to tell the ANC what it wants to hear”. This was a clear invitation for business to be as critical as they saw fit. Clearly Mantashe was not speaking for him – he would rather they feared to tell him he was a wrecking ball.

Zumacracy 4: The courts make it difficult to govern. Someone please pass the copy of the constitution to the president! It’s a pocket-sized thing that he can carry with him while he is being chauffeur-driven from court to court.

The slogan of judicial overreach, with noises emanating from him and his praise- singers, comes across as ill-considered, and fresh attacks on the courts have resurfaced in the wake of the damning court judgment exposing corruption and irregularities in various provinces.

Trying to intimidate the courts from doing their work is a Zumacratic tendency and a dangerous precedent that can only point to a misunderstanding of democracy. Zuma encourages a deliberate feigning of ignorance to confuse unsuspecting blind followers by turning the judiciary into scarecrows.

Zumacracy 5: The tripartite alliance partners must die in silence.

In a democracy, a partnership is not a dictatorship of one partner over another.

Zuma used the plenary of the conference as a bitching and mourning session about the alliance and what they did to him. Instead of giving a political report about how the alliance can best work, he degenerated his input to a gossip session that excluded his own complicity in killing the alliance completely.

He didn't even have the decency to explain why – if he was so concerned about unity – he unilaterally fired Blade Nzimande, a leader of an alliance partner, from his cabinet. But this is Zumacracy, with its hear-no-evil, see-noevil posture.

Zumacracy 6: The media must be mere observers and not be used by factions to fight battles.

Unfortunately, the media is not a “mere observer” in a democracy, but a constitutionally protected fourth estate. We all know that calls for objectivity are a pipe dream.

What the president must do is have a proper communications strategy to ensure that the media can be used effectively to communicate with citizens.

But in a Zumacracy, Zuma has sent his ministers to threaten media houses with advertising boycotts, he has attempted to intimidate cartoonists with lawsuits and refused to co-operate with media houses that he deemed hostile, while his ministers destroyed the SABC in an attempt to turn it solely into a state broadcaster. Under his watch, the SABC is a shadow of its former self, with the worst governance failures imaginable. Someone must whisper to Msholozi that the media owes him nothing.

So, pity for you if you expected some kind of introspection from Zuma, even as we are about to see the back of him. In his mind, all of us are just being bothersome, referring to the horrific indicators that characterised his tenure.

From the recession to the downgrades, from the Nkandla scandal to state of capture in that voluminous and lengthy script, there was no mention of taking an iota of responsibility.

The cold and muted body language of the conference delegates told the huge story of a constituency now finally fed up and ready to turn its back on the debilitating years of Zumacracy – democracy according to Msholozi. Tabane is the author of Let’s Talk Frankly and the host of Power Perspective on Power 987, Sundays to Thursdays, 9pm to 12am