Later today, Tuesday 15 October, the former president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, is due to appear in court on charges of corruption and fraud. The appearance comes after he lost a court application to have the charges stayed permanently.
Next week, he is due to testify before the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.
The last 18 months have seen a massive decline in Zuma’s political power. He appears to have lost the ability to control events. This is a major, and largely overlooked indication of how President Cyril Ramaphosa has managed to grind his opponents out. Still, there is one huge variable at play: the power that Zuma may still have through his previous influence at the State Security Agency and SA’s intelligence community.
It may, one day, be difficult to explain exactly how much power Zuma used to have. How none of the bad things he did always managed to slide over his Teflon-coated shoulders. How he would happily claim that the Guptas were “just friends”, that his son Duduzane was in business with them simply because it was his right. How Nkandla, a massive scandal by any measure, should be defended by the entire ANC, because he was paying the bond on it, nothing to see here, move along. These, and many other incidents of corruption and epic incompetence, would, of course, pale into insignificance when compared to the scale of State Capture.
All of this happened without anyone attempting to put a halt to his indiscretions, financial and otherwise. Zuma seemed unstoppable, an evil force of nature, a tsunami rolling over South Africa, leaving a bleak, washed-out landscape in its wake.
Even after he lost power, as late as July 2018, his appearance at a meeting with ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule at the Maharani Hotel in Durban led to fevered speculation about the real extent of his political power.
In a sign of how times can change, few people worry about Zuma’s power any more.
Today, he appears stuck in a maze of legal problems. His only way out of questions during his previous trip to the Zondo Commission was to claim that three people he had appointed to Cabinet were apartheid spies and that he had been the target of a number of assassination attempts. These days he is forced to use his Twitter account in an attempt to distract people from the real events occurring around him.
Obviously, Zuma is not the first head of state to drift into irrelevance after losing power. But he lost so much power so quickly, all the while actively fighting to regain that power.
There are several reasons why he lost his might so precipitously.
The first is, as with other political dynamics, the information that has emerged from the Zondo Commission. Increasing evidence of his own involvement in many episodes and the corruption that he enabled has come to light. This adds to the weight of evidence against him and makes it difficult to manoeuvre against.
A key moment in his decline happened last year in the KwaZulu-Natal ANC. Then, it seemed, he had the power to be able to force the cancellation of a conference that would have resulted in a “zebra” style of leadership, with leaders from two factions working together in one provincial executive committee. A few weeks later, he was unable to stop that conference from going ahead.
That led to the election of Sihle Zikalala’s current provincial leadership, and Mdumiseni Ntuli as the provincial secretary. It was this leadership that agreed that the Zuma-supporting Zandile Gumede had to step down as eThekwini mayor.
This indicates that Zuma has lost significant power even in his KwaZulu-Natal heartland.
Still, Zuma has always been able to think a couple of moves ahead and there is still a big question mark over what influence he has in the world of intelligence.
Over the weekend there were reports of infighting at the State Security, with claims that the minister, Ayanda Dlodlo, is in conflict with the acting director-general of the State Security Agency, Loyiso Jafta, and its domestic head, Mahlodi Muofhe. There are claims that Dlodlo wants to reinstate people appointed by the former head of the SSA, Arthur Fraser. Fraser was implicated in running a parallel intelligence unit for the benefit of himself and Zuma.
Then there is the strange case of Thulani Dlomo. Dlomo was the deputy director-general at the SSA and has been accused of working essentially for Zuma. When things got too hot for Dlomo, Zuma appointed him ambassador to Japan. Then, after Ramaphosa became president, Dlomo was recalled, after which he went Awol.
It is surely true that those who benefited from the State Capture era, including the Guptas, have amassed large amounts of resources and money. This means that it would be foolish for anyone to write them off entirely. And Zuma, of course, could be a key person in that network.
However, it seems that one aspect is undeniable: it is surely now impossible for Zuma, and any of the people around him, to regain the power they once had. They will not rule this country again.
Instead, their efforts and resources are being spent on staying out of prison. They are trying to avoid prosecution and may be weakening the state only with that intent.
This could be the most important aspect of this dynamic. That Zuma and his faction may have given up all hope of attaining supremacy again, and all that is left is the ability to frustrate those who do have political power.
For now, Zuma has to fight on many fronts. He is likely to lament that he has no money, as the state is no longer paying his legal fees. He may soon start giving the appearance of being yesterday’s person, still of interest, but not an alpha male anymore.
Considering where he once was, that is a crushing fall. DM
