Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Zuma staring last chance in the face
A second-term president has unique tribulations as well as opportunities, writes Craig Dodds
S JACOB Zuma today savours the spectacle in his honour that will put the seal on his second term in office as president, he will be calculating the effects of a more ordinary ceremony he must perform tomorrow – the unveiling of his new cabinet.
By now he will know the exact make-up of the team he will field in his bid to leave a legacy that secures his place in history with a positive verdict.
That is no small task and he will – with the ANC’s inner circle of influence – have placed as much emphasis as he could on each candidate’s fitness for purpose.
He will also want to leave as little scope as possible for the public protector investigations and court challenges that dogged his first executive. Even more importantly, if there is one message the ANC will have received loud and clear from the elections, it is that it is going to be vulnerable in key metros in the local government elections in two years’ time.
The micro issues that frequently erupt in community protests – water, sanitation, housing, street lighting, for example – must be attended to urgently or the ANC will risk forfeiting key electoral bases.
Unfortunately for Zuma, local government is probably the state’s weakest link, partly because this function was threadbare at best in many areas of the former homelands, partly because many with the technical skills required now work in the private sector and partly because it’s at this level that patronage plays the greatest role in appointments and the awarding of contracts.
That two years is precious little time in which to turn things around is demonstrated by the fate of Operation Clean Audit – a bid launched in 2009 to clean up municipal finances by this year, which foundered on the rocks of limited capacity and skills. But Zuma’s largely unfulfilled promises on jobs will be his biggest concern.
The state has led the way in cushioning the blow of the global recession, but it can do only so much before it chokes on a combination of rising wages and an expanding army of people in its employ.
Zuma will need no reminding that the only realistic exit route from this impasse is to crank up the stuttering economy.
He will not be encouraged by the stop-start recovery the global economy has made since the great reces-
Asion. This he cannot control, but he and his cabinet can maximise the strengths of the South African economy and eliminate as many weaknesses as possible.
They can also signal, as they did not in 2009, that they’re all singing from the same hymn sheet.
There are numerous signs, not least the ANC’s elections manifesto, that this is well understood.
Infrastructure blueprints must be translated as quickly and efficiently as possible into broken ground and poured concrete. There can be no further delays in the com- missioning of new power stations Medupi and Kusile which, alone, have throttled potential growth.
Whether sweet talking or the bashing together of heads is required, the state, business and labour must be persuaded to work together, not just to kickstart the economy but to foster job creation.
The name of the finance minister, after that of the deputy president, would have been among the first to be pencilled in, along with the others in the economic cluster.
Also high on the agenda will be education – something Zuma has previously picked as the one thing that has to be fixed.
Without decent schooling the annual wave of new jobseekers will crash on empty shores each time. The country will never build the skills base it needs to transform itself into a modern, knowledge- intensive economy. Again, this is the stubbornest of challenges, and progress, where it has occurred, has been painfully slow.
Zuma will need to appoint, first, a basic education minister who will hold provincial counterparts to account, ensuring teachers get all the training, materials and facilities they need, and then monitor their performance.
Second, he must appoint a higher education minister, assuming he keeps the ministries separate, who can ensure the quality of training on offer doesn’t suffer from efforts to massively expand its reach.
Against all these imperatives, and many more, Zuma will have had to weigh that of his own survival.
While it may be true he has a freer hand in his selections this time around, since this is his final term and he has fewer favours to repay, he will know that some rather large chickens will be coming home to roost in the next few months and years.
Nkandla is one of them, along with the spy tapes case and the possible reinstatement of corruption charges against him.
All indications are he will stall these chickens for as long as possible, but he will need some loyal lieutenants in cabinet to help him achieve this, and to watch his back should he be forced from office before serving his full term.
Some of his cabinet appointments will have been considered in this light, and the need to keep his allies onside in what will be the most treacherous period of his presidency.
As Thabo Mbeki found to his cost, a second-term president, having spent all the rewards he is able to offer, can be a sitting duck once the battle to succeed him commences.
On the other hand, Zuma showed with four cabinet reshuffles in his first term he is not afraid to chop off heads when needed, and the slightest sign of wavering loyalty could come at this price for those he appoints tomorrow.
Lastly, Zuma will know that his cabinet, and especially the tone it adopts in these harsh economic times, must give a nation weary of scandal extra reason to believe its faith in the governing party has not been misplaced.
He can send this message by keeping the executive as lean and mean as possible, and the members of his team can repay his faith in them by rolling up their sleeves on Monday and getting down to work.
The task is urgent.