Tide beginning to turn against Zuma

What a week! In the same week, the National Prosecuting Authority dropped charges of fraud against Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, a judge ordered that the report on the investigation into allegations of State capture be released and disparate groups – including the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), African National Congress (ANC) stalwarts, opposition parties, the South African Communist Party (SACP), representatives of big business and civil society organisations – marched in the Pretoria central business district in protest against ‘state capture’. Some of the groups demanded the removal of President Jacob Zuma as head of State.

Is this the beginning of the end for Zuma? What does this mean for the ANC? Which political forces are likely to benefit the most from these developments? And how are the supporters of the President likely to respond?

I believe very strongly that Zuma has begun his ninth life. What I do not know is how long it will last. However, what I am not in doubt about is the fact that, no matter how slowly, the tide is beginning to turn against the President. In my view, Zuma is much weaker today than at any other time since his election as ANC president at the infamous Polokwane conference in December 2007 .

That conference was supposed to be a turning point for the ANC and its members, but it simply ushered in what is most probably the most disastrous period in the history of the party. After the Polokwane conference, the ANC was supposed to be a more democratic space, with power going back to the branches and, therefore, the ordinary members of the party. Instead, the past nine years have been about a deepening internal crisis and the intensification of the qualitative decline of the ANC under Zuma at leadership, strategic, intellectual, moral and other levels. The ANC of Jacob Zuma is a betrayal of the ANC of Oliver Tambo.

What the ‘State of Capture’ report does is to reinforce the perception that Zuma is a corrupt, scandal-prone magnet that has been captured by the Gupta family. For me, the tragedy is that different parts and different leaders of the ANC have been captured by forces, particularly in business, that are hostile to the goal of the total liberation of those who are still ravaged by the legacy of apartheid colonialism.

My attitude towards the ‘State of Capture’ report is that it is no longer unreasonable to surmise that there is a degree to which the allegation that the President and other State functionaries have been captured by the Guptas is not false. It is, therefore, no longer unreasonable to call for the President to step down. He must step down because he has become a threat to our democracy, national sovereignty and national security.

The wave of antipathy towards Zuma is, in my view, quite understandable. But, in the same way that I believe that, during the liberation struggle, the fact that some people in the ANC who fought against apartheid found themselves being part of a struggle for democracy was simply an accident, I believe that some of the people who are calling on Zuma to go are not doing so in defence of democracy. They, like Zuma, have succeeded in disguising their narrow interests as opposition to all things venal as well as a commitment to democracy. Therefore, those whose motives are genuine must be vigilant. Otherwise, Zuma and the ANC will be replaced by scavengers with predatory instincts.

This brings me to those who still insist that, to fix South Africa, we must fix the ANC. What they must realise is that, in order to fix our country, we may have to do one of two things – fixing or discarding the ANC. The ANC stalwarts who are calling for change and to whom change is about recalling Zuma and saving the ANC must be very clear in their minds about whether the ANC is worth saving. If it is, they must not think that this is about going back to the ANC of Tambo, Nelson Mandela or Thabo Mbeki. That ANC is no more and will never again be.

To the extent that the campaign against Zuma may be about the supporters of Mbeki recapturing the ANC, this would not be a step forward. It would not constitute progress. It would definitely be a step backwards. Therefore, I hope that nostalgia and romance are not going to be the main ingredients in charting a post-Zuma path that will – in qualitative, moral and other ways – be the antithesis of what the ANC and our society have become under Zuma’s ANC.

What we must pray and work for, however, is a smooth and peaceful transition to a South Africa that will be free from the political decadence of the Zuma era.