South Africa

It appears that the ANC has tagged party deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe as caretaker president to keep the seat warm for Jacob Zuma. Motlanthe has kept his powder dry in the Zuma-Thabo Mbeki personality wars, which appears to have paid off for him. Motlanthe is left-leaning but gained status within the party for chastising rowdy younger members of the party for causing divisions in Polokwane in December. Of course Parliament has yet to vote to finalize Motlanthe as Mbeki’s successor, so do not be surprised if this transition does not go as smoothly as some party solons hope.

Most South Africans, and indeed observers the world over, have been left scratching their heads over the recent events that with dizzying speed led to Thabo Mbeki’s looming resignation and the biggest political crisis in South Africa since the period prior to 1994. Not all are thrilled with the decision and others are worried about the ramifications. Whatever one’s views of South African politics and the nasty personal rivalries involved, this is not an ideal outcome and these are not good days for South Africa or the African National Congress.

Now comes the hard part: What’s next? The ANC is going to have to deal with the transition, ease the worries not only of the Mbeki wing of the party but of the Cabinet, the opposition parties, the international community, and of course the country’s masses. For the time being Trevor Manuel will remain as Finance Minister, a vital step to placate both the domestic and international community as to the continued viability of South Africa’s economy. While Jacob Zuma will presumably win election to the country’s presidency after elections in 2009, for the time being Baleka Mbete, the Speaker of the National Assembly, will likely serve as a placeholder bridge in the Presidency between Mbeki and Zuma, assuming that deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka follows through on her promise to resign if Mbeki was forced out, though there are some questions as to the exact Constitutional implications of Mbeki’s and Mlambo-Ngcuka’s resignations. 

It is perhaps no coincidence that legal experts believe that Zuma’s corruption trial will likely not proceed until 2010. By that point he will be safely ensconced in office and it will be all the harder to convict him without sending the country into another Constitutional crisis. Thus the recent events very much seem like a consolidation of power that while unnecessary and destabilizing also leave no doubt as to Zuma’s status not only as the ANC’s leader but as the country’s de facto head. Things might work out well. But it is hard to feel better about South Africa’s political prospects now than a week ago, at least in the short term.

Details are sketchy, but it appears that Thabo Mbeki has agreed to resign after the ANC’s National Executive Committee asked President Thabo Mbeki and several of his sympathizers in government to step down. The NEC took a long time in coming to this solution and appears to have been deeply divided.

I am surprised Mbeki went so gently, if that indeed is what has happened. The man will leave office an almost tragic figure. My guess is that when all is said and done Mbeki came to the conclusion that while he could have fought, and probably held on for the remainder of his term, doing so would have damaged the country even further. Mbeki’s controversial reign may be over, and his legacy will long be debated. But i do not think there are any serious doubts that he loved his country. he will surely couch his resignation within the context of that devotion to South Africa.

Make no mistake: Just as the ANC conference in Polokwane in December did not mark any sort of end point in South Africa’s deeply divided politics, neither will this decision. The ripple effects of Mbeki’s forced resignation have only just begun.  Jacob Zuma’s supporters might want to temper their glee for the time being. There is a large and angry wing of the ANC that is not simply going to stand by while this happens. And Zuma’s loyalists had better hope that Nelson Mandela either supports these changes or remains silent if he does not. If Madiba is displeased, that could reshape the terms of the discussion quite quickly.

Am I the only person for whom the current political crisis in South Africa seems like a scene from The Godfather? It seems as if Tom Hagen, the trusted consiglieri, needs to step in and remind the principals that whatever happens is business, not personal. Instead, everyone is Sonny Corleone, taking it all very, very personally. But who are we kidding? It’s all personal.

A week or so ago there was a story about how members of COSATU wanted Jacob Zuma restored as Deputy President and for the legal case against him to be “put to rest.” What at the time seemed like just another example of Zuma’s partisans defending their man now seems almost like a horse head in Thabo Mbeki’s bed: Do it. Or else.

Now we face what are almost certain to be tense, fraught days as the National Executive Committee of the ANC meets and presumably will decide Thabo Mbeki’s fate as President. Mbeki takes this all personally, even if it is just business, because for all of the allegations and counter-allegations, of course it is very personal. Lots of Jacob Zuma’s supporters just plain do not like Thabo Mbeki. Indeed, that dislike (which runs both ways), more than any policy differences the two men might have, is the demarcation point of South African politics.

Mbeki may not have as many supporters as Zuma does right now, as the tally of delegates at Polokwane in December made clear. But for the time being those Mbeki supporters sit in high places in government. And many of them have made clear that if Mbeki goes, they will go too. And while Zuma’s supporters might be inclined to say “good riddance,” such a walkout would lead to a serious vacuum in South Africa’s government that the ruling party is not prepared to fill on short notice. The anti-Mbeki faction hopes to be able to topple Mbeki without creating the conditions for immediate elections and while at the same time avoiding utter chaos.

This is the business they have chosen for themselves. It can be a dangerous business. And very, very personal.

Thabo Mbeki will be fighting for his political life this weekend when the National Executive Council (NEC) of the African National Congress (ANC) meets. Supporters of Jacob Zuma believe that Mbeki is behind political machinations in the judiciary aimed at Zuma and have called for Mbeki’s ouster.

Mbeki’s supporters insist that the President is not going anywhere. And the NEC has to be aware that removing Mbeki from office is a dire move that will lead to a political firestorm and will certainly divide the ANC, perhaps irrevocably. Nonetheless, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) needs to be prepared for all eventualities, including an unexpectedly early presidential election and the ANC needs to be prepared for what will follow if the NEC really does force Mbeki out.

This is the state of Post-Polokwane politics in South Africa. the ruling party is deeply divided along lines that can only partly be explained by ideological fissures. The politics of personality have reached their nadir. It is hard to envision the NEC really following through on the nuclear option, especially given that doing so would surely create a political and constitutional crisis the likes of which South Africa has not seen since the CODESA negotiations.

The most likely outcome of this weekend’s summit is that Mbeki’s lame-duck status will be reconfirmed and the president will walk away deeply but not gravely wounded. Zuma’s people want their pound of flesh. What they do not seem to recognize is that at some point their man, if he avoids all of the land mines set in his path, will still need to govern the whole of South Africa. The demands of party leadership and of the presidency are rather different, and may become more so once his supporters’ caricature of Mbeki is no longer in place to blame for all ills real and perceived.

South Africa’s unmatched political cartoonist Zapiro has caused quite a stir, infuriating the Jacob Zuma wing of the African National Congress over this controversial cartoon depicting various wings of the ANC holding down the justice system, depicted as a woman struggling to break free, as Jacob Zuma prepares to, well, rape her.

[Zapiro, Sunday Times, 7 September 2008] 

Invoking Zuma’s legal troubles, including his past rape charges, as well as the allegations that Zuma and his supporters are fighting hard to undermine the country’s legal system, the cartoon is unquestionably edgy. It represents a blistering, no-holds-barred commentary on the ANC president. I can certainly see the argument that the cartoon crosses the boundaries of taste.

But I cannot accept that the cartoon in and of itself is actionable (Zuma is considering pursuing legal action), that Zapiro owes COSATU or anyone else depicted in the cartoon an apology, or that Zapiro’s freedom to publish, to agitate, to accuse, or to criticize ought to be curtailed. Media freedom is sacrosanct in free societies, and ought to be especially cherished in South Africa where the apartheid government notoriously cracked down on and censored the media. By all means, respond to Zapiro. Argue with him. Disagree. Defend Zuma and his allies. But do not threaten to crack down on Zapiro or the media in which he publishes. South Africans, of all people, know better.

The corruption charges against Jacob Zuma either have legal merit or they do not. If the charges are baseless, they should be dropped. If there is a legal foundation to move forward, the process should play out.

This seeming truism comes to mind in light of the Friday protests by eThekwini ANC members who marched on Durban police stations demanding that the charges against Zuma be dropped and South African Communist Party (SACP) concerns that the trial will do damage to South Africa politically and financially.  There is at least some merit to the idea that a trial could have serious destabilizing effects on South African politics in the short run. But so too would dropping the charges for reasons unrelated to the legal merit of those charges and would merely replace one angry population for another.

An independent judiciary is the hallmark of any liberal democracy. As fraught as a Zuma trial might seem, far worse would be creating the impression that members of the country’s elite are above the law. The charges must go forward unless over the course of the legal process members of the judiciary decide not to pursue them any further because they doubt the legal merits of the case.

It appears that the curious case of Cape Judge John Hlophe might reach its resolution soon one way or the other. Hlophe has been accused of trying to influence judges on the Constitutional Court to rule favorably for Jacob Zuma in one of the stages of the ANC President’s corruption case. Hlophe has applied to the Witwatersrand Local Division asking that the court have the Constitutional Court’s actions ruled invalid. That hearing, the first of its kind in the country’s history, was to take place today.

If the court grants Hlophe’s application, this sordid little incident will represent little more than a footnote in South Africa’s always lively political history. But if Hlophe suffers defeat his case will almost certainly provide part of a chaotic backdrop against which Zuma’s political hopes will play out.

Jacob Zuma would like to have the corruption charges against him thrown out. Barring that, he hopes that a policy of delay will buy him time to find a way out of his crisis. He knows that in some circles among his allies and among those who have not taken sides there is a hope that there is some way out of this mess that will not destabilize the ANC further, and thus destabilize South African politics and society.

Judge Chris Nicholson on Tuesday announced that his decision on whether to toss the corruption charges (per Zuma’s application) will not be made until next month. In the interregnum Zuma, his lawyers, and his political supporters (and probably not a few of his detractors) will feverishly work on finding some compromise, pulling some levers, and finding some rabbits to pull from hats in order to stave off what in ordinary circumstances might seem like an inevitable trial that may well not go well for the country’s presumed next president.

Jacob Zuma desperately wants to avoid the corruption charges that he faces. The talk when I was in South Africa was that the charges would be thrown out, less on the merits than out of a sense of expediency. At the same time, Zuma needs the charges either to go away or to be weakened to the point where he can reasonably argue that he faces a political witch hunt. Conviction on charges that have sent some of his alleged co-conspirators to prison would presumably sound the death knell for his presidential ambitions.

For all of these reasons, today’s decision by South Africa’s Constitutional Court that the search and seizure of Zuma’s property was proper looms as a particularly grim defeat, especially coming as it does just days before Zuma’s lawyers are going to try to have the corruption charges against him dismissed. The court also dismissed Zuma’s appeal to stop the National Prosecution Authority (NPA) from utilizing documents that had been part of the case against Zuma’s convicted former financial advisor Schabir Sheik on charges of fraud and corruption similar to those the ANC leader now faces.

Even more ominous for Zuma, the first decision came with only one dissent. The second was unanimous. Thus the country’s highest court, which has for some time been presumed to be pretty evenly split along, for lack of a better conceptual framework, Zuma-Mbeki lines now appears to be fairly united in terms of its attempts to focus on the matters of law in the Zuma case. The Constituional crisis that many observers thought might come to pass as the result of the supposed divisions on the court appear to have been dramatically overstated or else have been ameliorated for the greater good. Either way, Jacob Zuma is having a bad day.