Ex-president suspended for his `vitriolic attacks'
South Africa's governing party, the African National Congress, in a remarkable rebuke, suspended its former president, Jacob Zuma, on Monday, for launching “vitriolic attacks” against the organization after throwing his support behind a rival political party.
Calling Zuma's behavior “erratic” and “disruptive” before crucial national elections this year, one of the ANC's top officials essentially assailed the former president as an agent of right-wing forces seeking to stifle Black progress.
“Former President Zuma is actively asserting himself as the figurehead of counterrevolution in South Africa,” said Fikile Mbalula, the ANC's secretary-general, reading from a statement by the party's top decision-making body.
It was a stunning turn of events for a former freedom fighter who was once imprisoned alongside Nelson Mandela. Zuma later became leader of the ANC and the nation, dispensing populist rhetoric that attracted a fervent following.
“It is an extraordinary characterization; there's no doubt about it,” Bongani Ngqulunga, who teaches politics at the University of Johannesburg and was a spokesperson for Zuma when he was president of the nation, said of the ANC statement. “It just demonstrates the alienation between former President Zuma and the political party that he served and led.” The suspension signals a break from Zuma's corrosive legacy by party leaders who had spent years defending him against accusations of corruption and wrongdoing, even as his actions eroded public support. It is also a show of strength by President Cyril Ramaphosa, a nemesis of Zuma's, as he seeks reelection.
“That nine years was largely characterized by negative, which is what we're getting out of now,” Mbalula said of Zuma's tenure as president of South Africa.
But the suspension — it is the first time the ANC has taken such action against a former president — may also hold dangers for the party. This year's elections, analysts and even some ANC members say, could sink it below an absolute majority for the first time since the end of apartheid 30 years ago.
In the weeks since he announced that he would not vote for his party this year, Zuma, 81, has been drawing huge crowds at rallies for a new political organization, Spear of the Nation, which bears the name of the ANC's apartheid-era armed wing.