South Africa

Is Tokyo Sexwale laying the foundation for a run at the Presidency if Jacob Zuma’s path to power is cut off by his corruption case?

That was the first question that came to mind when I saw that Sexwale has started pressing Thabo Mbeki to come clean about his role in the arms deal that increasingly is taking on a life of its own in South African politics. After all, Sexwale might assume, Zuma’s case will play out on its own, so there is no need right now to take on the ANC president. But by going after Mbeki, and by doing so on an issue that will allow Sexwale to show his moral probity, he has also engaged in a cunning act of political triangulation.

If Sexwale throws his hat in the ring (or if he plays it so that he is summoned by his party and his people to service after a Zuma implosion) we may look back on this as the crucial moment of origin.   

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.  

OK, let’s do our best to continue to make sense out of the news, noise, and nonsense emanating from all corners in South African politics. While some preach unity others call for insubordination, it is no wonder that so many of South Africa’s great political minds worry about the fallout from the fast-approaching ANC meetings.

Perhaps indicative of just how tightly contested the leadership campaign is, almost all events seem to be viewed through the prism of politics with the overriding question being “who benefits?” (Or, perhaps as important, “who loses?”) The recent spate of power outages throughout South Africa? This is a delivery issue that is bad for the current power structure. Thabo Mbeki loses! A whole host of snafus in the voting processes, including concerns over whether delegates will be seated in Polokwane? Chaos is unpredictable. Stay tuned to see who wins! Jacob Zuma provides food for needy children? feeding the poor is popular. Zuma wins! One-time potential contender for the ANC crown, Tokyo Sexwale, endorses Jacob Zuma? Receiving endorsements from popular folks is good. Jacob Zuma wins! If it seems that Zuma is doing well and Mbeki is not, longtime observer of South African politics has one possible explanation: Thabo Mbeki has won the government, and in so doing he has lost the party.

One group that appears to be emerging as clear winners, as is usually the case in fraught political circumstances? Satirists. laugh, people. It’s sometimes the only way to keep from crying.