South Africa

Jacob Zuma is in trouble. Yesterday Constitutional Court Justice Zac Yacoob announced that he had “no difficulty” with the justifications that the state put forth to justify the search and seizure operations it conducted on Zuma and his attorneys’ homes and offices and that the “creative conspiracy” Jacob Zuma was allegedly involved in justified broad investigation. Even before the Constitutional Court levied its ruling state lawyers accused Zuma of attempting to “delay justice” by his gambit of challenging the state’s evidence and the National Prosecuting Authority accused Zuma’s seemingly desperate machinations and attacks against the state (the very state he hopes to lead) of “[giving] the administration of justice a bad name.”

(Zapiro, Mail & Guardian, 11 March 2008) 

So what now? Well, although Zuma still has his defenders, and presumably will marshall those supporters through his trial, scheduled for August, things do not look good for the embattled president of the ANC. And presumably even if his base sticks with him, Zuma is destined to lose a lot of his soft support or those who, even if they do not consider themselves loyalists, were willing to go along with his ascension. The NPA appears confident that it will successfully prosecute Zuma and that he will be convicted.  If that happens, all hell will almost certainly break loose, at least in the short run. Even now the business community is jittery and South Africa’s international reputation has taken a hit, whether fairly or not.

So, now what? Well, the legal process still has to play out, and one assumes that Zuma will continue to put up a fight given that his freedom and his political life are at risk. But it does not take a lot of imagination to see the political buzzards circling Zuma’s corpse before long, even if he emerges unscathed from his trial but humiliated and weakened, which seems inevitable. Zuma does not strike me as the type to resign, but would the ANC call for a special conference, a revisitation of Polokwane? And who will emerge to challenge Zuma? Nkosozana Dlamini-Zuma? Tokyo Sexwale? Or perhaps my long-suspected coyly reluctant candidate, Cyril Ramaphosa?

Whatever happens, my guess is that the schadenfreude is barely hidden at Tuynhuys, where Thabo Mbeki probably wears a guilty smile on his lips today. The beleaguered President has taken quite a beating of late at the hands of Zuma and his supporters. This must seem like apt poetic justice.  

If it’s a new day in South Africa it inevitably means that the tension level has been ratcheted up another notch. The biggest story may be the rumors that if Jacob Zuma wins the ANC presidency he will get to work trying to find a way to force Mbeki out of office. One cannot help but wonder where such a move would fall on the business-personal divide.

Speaking of merging the personal and the political, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has officially thrown her support behind Thabo Mbeki, accepting a nomination for ANC Deputy President rather than take the chairmanship on her ex-husband’s campaign.

Naturally, many wonder what the overall effect of the Polokwane meetings and concomitant division, which has seeped down to (or risen up from?) the provincial level, will have on the ANC.  I’ve long argued that the ANC-COSATU-SACP coalition may not last forever and that the most viable opposition to the ANC would come from an internal splintering and not an external challenge. Are we seeing the first stages of that break today?

It really does appear that Jacob Zuma not only leads the pack in the ANC succession battle, but he also appears to be consolidating his hold on what he clearly believes to be the pending nomination. Part of the perceived change in momentum is the result of the ANC Women’s League’s National Executive Committee to switch allegiance from Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to Zuma to the consternation of some:

Thenjiwe Mtintso, South Africa’s ambassador to Cuba and a member of the league and the ANC NEC, said the move came as a shock because she hoped the league would nominate a woman candidate.

“I was shocked that women can sit in their own conference without having any problem and nominate a man. It’s really a sad day for us that we are not able to lead the pack.”

The ANC Women’s League has clearly made what they believe to be a utilitarian choice based on pragmatic considerations. But in so doing they have made the prospects of a real nomination battle less likely. If the National Prosecuting Authority chooses to pursue corruption charges against Zuma in the next two weeks, that might change the dynamic considerably. As of now, the NPA is either undecided or is keeping mum. Would it come as a shock to anyone if there was a last-minute surprise in which Thabo Mbeki and the current ANC hierarchy managed to apply pressure to the NPA to bring those charges?

Jacob Zuma twists in the wind, wondering whether the National Prosecuting Authority is going to reinstate corruption charges against him before the ANC’s December conference. If the NPA does recharge the embattled but still tremendously popular (in some circles, at least) Zuma, it will almost assuredly scuttle any hopes that he would be able to succeed Thabo Mbeki as ANC, and thus South Africa’s, President.

(Jacob Zuma)

Meanwhile, what of Mbeki’s wishes as to who will follow him in the party’s and state’s seat of power? Well, one possibility is that he will remain the party’s president, thus giving him the leverage effectively to appoint his own successor. If that situation comes to pass (and I, at least, wish Mbeki would remove himself from consideration for even the party Presidency, lest Big Man Syndrome By Proxy set in) who might Mbeki’s choices to lead the country be? According to a report in The Mail & Guardian:

If President Thabo Mbeki remains ANC president and therefore has the power to appoint his own successor, South Africa after 2009 will be run by his two most-trusted lieutenants, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and government’s head of policy-making, Joel Netshitenzhe.

The strategy emerged in the Mbeki camp after deliberations with Netshitenzhe, who has insisted previously that he is not interested in holding any of the top positions in the party. But now he has been persuaded that the ANC needs him to step up to the plate and help wrest control from presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma.

(Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma)

That Dlamini-Zuma might succeed Mbeki, who has indicated that he would like to be succeeded by a woman, has aroused more than a little bit of excitement. But the fact that Mbeki seems to be willing to use the Zuma situation as a pretense to perpetuate his own power within the party is disquieting, even if his doing so is better than the rumors that he might want to change the Constitution to be able to serve as South Africa’s president for another term. Nonetheless, these machinations are also telling as to how deep the Mbeki-Zuma divide has become in the last few years.

(Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki arrive at Adalaide Tambo’s memorial service in February 2007)