ANALYSIS
How do you solve a problem like Zuma? There is no simple solution
The decision by the ANC to not proceed with former president Jacob Zuma’s disciplinary hearing underscores how the governing party has found it impossible to manage the situation. This goes all the way back to the party electing Zuma as its president despite the conviction of Schabir Shaik for paying him a bribe.
On Sunday, ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula confirmed that he had instructed the party’s National Disciplinary Committee to postpone its disciplinary hearing of former president Jacob Zuma until after the elections. He said this was because Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party had said publicly its members would protest outside the ANC’s headquarters in Johannesburg, Luthuli House, in support of Zuma.
However, later on Sunday, MK spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela told the SABC that MK would still go ahead with the protest.
This means that members of one party were planning to protest outside the headquarters of another party — of which their leader is still a member.
And they were going to protest against an event which was not even happening.
However, sense has now prevailed, and MK has confirmed that it has canceled its protest “at the request of President Zuma” and “due to the ANC’s threats of violence which could lead to a possible repeat of the Shell House Massacre or even the Marikana Massacre”.
Mbalula’s confirmation that the disciplinary proceedings had been postponed reveals a complex problem for the ANC: any proceedings against Zuma can tie it up in endless knots.
It is not clear that Mbalula has the power to order the National Disciplinary Committee to do anything. The very reason for its existence is that it is independent (except for the ANC’s National Executive Committee, which can overrule its final decision). To obey orders given by the secretary-general negates the reason for its existence.
There are other problems.
Why the long wait?
The ANC’s charge sheet against Zuma, lodged only last week, stipulates: “On 16th December 2023, you addressed the Umkhonto we Sizwe Party (MKP) in Soweto and you called on all South Africans to join you in dislodging the ANC as the ruling party.”
While this cannot be disputed, the ANC must explain why it waited until May to finally act against Zuma — in the middle of an election campaign.
If he said this on 16 December, why was he not charged the next day?
This is the kind of gap through which Dali Mpofu can drive an 18-wheel truck.
If the ANC had acted immediately, it would have had a stronger case. It is paying the price for yet another in the string of inexplicable failures to act against Zuma that has beset it for years.
However, the ANC has an easier option than hauling Zuma before the National Disciplinary Committee. At some point, his membership will have to be reviewed as part of the annual cycle (the ANC website says the current membership fee is R20 to be paid “annually”). The party can simply refuse to accept his money when the time comes, on the basis that he belongs to another party.
It should not be forgotten that had the hearing gone ahead, it could have sparked clashes outside Luthuli House.
In 2011, when disciplinary proceedings were started against ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, several thousand people gathered outside Luthuli House, ostensibly to defend him. The result was a day of violence in the Johannesburg city centre, with Malema’s supporters throwing stones at the police while he watched from atop Luthuli House, surrounded by his lieutenants.
The area outside Luthuli House resembled a war zone. But, inside the ANC headquarters, then ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe welcomed journalists with offers of bottles of water. It was a fascinating moment when the interests of the media and Mantashe were aligned.
In 2011, Malema was still maturing as a political leader and his support was relatively unproven.
Zuma is very different. The violence that claimed more than 300 lives in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng came just days after he was jailed in 2021. The very presence of MK in this election has led to fears that there could be more incidents of violence in KZN before voting day.
Zuma has never disavowed this infamous day of destruction that was committed in his name.
Decisions and consequences
The ANC has to tread carefully.
It should be remembered, though, that the ANC itself is to blame for its predicament.
If its leaders had not taken the decisions to strongly support Zuma through each and every scandal while he was in office, MK would not have the power it has now.
If the ANC had acted against Zuma when he fired Nhlanhla Nene in 2015, or during the Nkandla scandal, or when it became clear the Guptas were looting South Africa, none of this would be happening now.
It was the political decision that the ANC made to treat every criticism of Zuma as an attack on the party that has made him so powerful.
It was the ANC that elected him as its leader despite the many warnings about his conduct. ANC delegates voted for Zuma at Polokwane in 2007, despite the conviction of Schabir Shaik for paying him a bribe in 2005, allowing Zuma to enable State Capture.
The ANC’s current leadership must shoulder some of the blame.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has repeatedly claimed the ANC is going through a process of “renewal” — but he has appointed to his government people found to have been involved in State Capture.
He has not explained why he chose to do this, instead claiming that “processes” have to play out.
Appointing someone implicated in wrongdoing is a political choice. Either Ramaphosa appointed David Mahlobo and Zizi Kodwa because he wanted to, or because the internal politics of the ANC forced him to. He also appointed ANC Chair Gwede Mantashe to his Cabinet, but Mantashe has instituted legal action to review the Zondo Commission’s findings against him and appeared before the ANC’s Integrity Commission, which cleared him of wrongdoing.
If Ramaphosa made the appointments because he wanted to, he is not committed to the renewal of the ANC.
And if he did so because the ANC forced him to, the party is not committed to renewal.
It is likely that Zuma and MK will continue to use the charges against him as a campaigning tool and that the ANC will continue to suffer as a result.
This has been years in the making and there is no simple solution to the “Zuma problem” for the ANC. DM
Read more in Daily Maverick: Elections 2024
The Zuma problem is a problem of leadership and the type of leadership capabilities capabilities available for political affairs. You always talk of toxic masculinity, but what about toxic leadership as a new emerging phenomenon, or in the case of SA, a recurring problem. I am not saying former president Zuma is a toxic leader, but why is he popular? Is it because of the failure of neo liberal economics that s@ decided to pursue after ditching the RDP and embracing what Blade the 1996 class project. Maybe talking about toxic leadership is like a dog barking at a wrong tree. Maybe Zuma is not the problem, maybe the problem is that you Stephen are not willing to address the elephant in the room, that is the economic policy framework that has underpinned SA democracy since 96, taking 96 as a base line. Why did former president Mbeki ditch RDP in favour of GEAR! Maybe neo liberal economics have worked in some places like Singapore and Hong Kong. Maybe this is a question we will never answer? Maybe it was never about the masses of the people, it was a class project to build a black bourgeois that will keep the prevailing market conditions humming as is palatable for the international community. Maybe SA is just another colonial or neo colonial backwater whose socioeconomic factors are surbodinated to the demands of the mother country. So it is a futile exercise to crack one’s head with the Zuma problem within a context of a political environment not willing to confront it’s self
Good day “only black boy from the township” ? What should we make of you, with al these grand words in all your comment , but different stances in each. Definitely a bot used to reach a certain objective. You can fool some but not all
“This is the kind of gap through which Dali Mpofu can drive an 18-wheel truck”
Dali Mpofu cannot represent Zuma in the ANC DC hearing, because Mpofu is not a member of the ANC.
Unless if you anticipate that Zuma will take the matter to the courts of law.
“If its leaders had not taken the decisions to strongly support Zuma through each and every scandal while he was in office, MK would not have the power it has now”
Zuma had the backing of the branches, so ANC leadership(NEC) would not have done anything.. They themselves are a product(elected by the branches) of the very branches.
I would also edit the sentence to read “This is the kind of gap through which even Dali Mpofu can drive an 18-wheel truck” ( granted it goes to court)
Ignorance is bliss. Ignore him.
Education.
Why is the ANC so scared of Zuma that they are paralysed into inaction?
Exactly WHAT happened in the Quattro Camps such that seemingly everyone is fearful of him?
Exactly WHAT kind of monster must he be?
Of course we all know that he lies, cheats, avoids justice even more so than Donald Trump, but that is a bar set so low that even a pigeon could jump it. We also know, but the ANC and Police are fearful to confirm and so arrest, that he was the “invisible hand” behind the July, 2021 treasonous insurrection, together with his “Madame Defarge”, daughter.
We also know that, unless and until, the ANC develops some serious cojones and tackles Zuma head-on, he will continue to act with impunity and he is not in the least concerned, if, in the process of preventing his being jailed, he burns, loos and destroys our country, acting of course, as all cowards do, through proxies.
Compromised people have lots to fear. A single piece of information can be their mortal enemy.
Which leads to an intriguing topic to ponder: Does Fraser’s revelations about the Phala Phala cash heist represent the most damaging info they had on Cyril, or was it “just a taste”?
Depending on which direction one leans on that, it could mean that Ramaphosa either has a free hand now that he has no further kompromat to fear, or that he could not possibly risk moving against the worst characters still inside the ANC. Either way, he would still be dealing with a significant number of other ANC leaders who do have their own smallanyana skeletons to fear (and perhaps some big-nyana ones too).
It would also depend on to which extent the SSA and SAPS Crime Intelligence has been cleaned out. Keep in mind that the intelligence services had been partially captured by the RET faction even before Mbeki was recalled — otherwise surveillance tapes of phone conversations between the NDPP and the head of the Scorpions unit would not have existed in the first place. Ramaphosa collapsing the Ministry of State Security into the Presidency, giving himself (through Ntshavheni) direct oversight over the SSA, was far from arbitrary or insignificant. The Office of Interception Centres still has a direct line into every mobile and fibre network operator in the country, courtesy of RICA. And the NCC very likely has unofficial domestic SIGINT capabilities.
It might be helpful to remember that South Africa is a country of Africa and try to dissect the politics in African terms. The politics we see now are strange because, mostly, Europeans know nothing about Africans and proceed from the standpoint of their own Eurocentric ‘world view’. I have long ago tired of European commentators who cannot so much as pronounce African names, bloviating Eurocentric economic and ethical niceties. It’s ‘half-court tennis’! – you can make what you want of your side of the court – but you need to see the other side of the court, the better to play the game….
1. Zuma’s politics and even his conduct, generally, is strange under any worldview. He is not found objectionable only by the people of European descent.
2. If a person cannot pronounce , for example click sounds, he/she is not deliberately mispronouncing some words.
Maybe I’m missing something. But a thug is a thug in any decent, ethical person’s view. Whether African, European, American, Asian, etc. It has nothing to do with a Eurocentric “world view”.
Another stuff up by Mbalula and his boss!
In all the parliamentary motions of no confidence (9 I think?) the ANC, to a man, was simply too shit scared to agree with the opposition that Zuma was selling the country and destroying its wealth. They were scared of two things: Firstly they knew that Zuma, unlike the lily livered Ramaphosa, was not averse to firing colleagues who crossed him. The second reason was simply that their desire to remain on the gravy train and carry on looting state coffers was a powerful enough factor in self enrichment o remain connected at all costs. The ANC comrades abject terror of Zuma is no doubt being abated somewhat by the current unravelling of the MK under his loony leadership.
Stephen Grootes you continue to wring your hands and seemingly not be able to come to terms with the fact that the ANC is and always has been a fetid turd that can never be oxidized, regenerated, renewed or reformed into anything but what it is. The longer it takes for you and other so self-called liberal free press ANC sycophants to come to terms with this FACT the longer the cANCer is going to fester around our necks. It is high noon in the South African OK corral. its time you faced up to this fact and read the writing on the wall. The ANC and in all its machinations must just leave town and let real South Africans rebuild our country.
Correct, Zuma is not the problem – he is a SYMPTOM of the real problem, which is the ANC.
I heard there is people in KZN that can be hired to solve such a problem, just thinking out loud.
I wish that I had your level of hope, that if some journalist(Stephen Grootes) changes how he views and writes about the ANC then suddenly the voters will not retain the ANC as government of RSA.
Majority of the said voters are not even reading online DM articles.
When you address the figure with such a stupendous volume of influence on the sociopolitical trajectory of South Africa as a problem, clearly, the problem is itself not the issue. For one, to say ‘The Zuma Problem’, will paint a strong sense of a problematizing identity with the former president, I suppose, as most critiques would, question the credibility and validity as well as the correctness of dubbing Zuma’s whole makeup as a problem. Courtrooms and legal chambers and otherwise have all shared a brief light on the unvarying targeting aimed at the personality, character and image of Zuma. I do not want to portray a defensive stance disfavoring Zuma, not his politicizing efforts per se, but there is unavoidable nudity with a stench of a placating tactics from your ends as a journalistic voice. If we are to dig past events and errors, as it were, to the levels of excavating Shabir Shaikh scandals, Guptas and the attention balloons of Cogta’s mistakings, then we may as well keep digging the past all the way to the formulations of the separation policies of the Apartheid century. If we are to really scrutinize the issue on the plate, we will find that the nerve is wrecked off of the reasons for a meandering effort of the Zuma ‘problem’ as an MK Party initiator with the brevity of innovations for a justifiable cause of ‘rescuing the ANC’.
By extension, Stephen, you will see that the root of a tree is most often the source and cause of any problem born by the visible of the tree. During the maifesto, Jacob Zuma, stated that he is ANC, and will die ANC and he formed MK Party because of his birthtodeath loyalty and commitment to the ANC’s foremost fundamentals for liberating the people. Of course, people are people, the term people does not hint, nor does it clue of racial or ethnical background, so, the Zuma problem, is idealistically, a reverberating Zuma provision for a lifeline of the ANC, a movement for freedom for the people of South Africa, the people in South Africa, the people for South Africa. A very strong and gigantic elephant in the form of ANC an only be brought down by squeezing its balls. Excuse the pun. I suppose because of rights and freedoms today, we face the dilemma of 1488 political parties in one geography. Frankly, to sell an idea of a problem in a figure like Zuma, really is just a selling of an ambitious intent to gather the gullible. You will be surprised at how many people, want to see a true definition of ike e ixarra ike, but of course that will not come as a surprise, it’s a given.
Everybody wants a breathing space built and fostered by a government on the proformas of unifying, uniting, and united pillars of reasonable openness for inclusions, accesses, availabilities of democratic inputs from all tentacles of factions, manacles of parties and the handouts by shackles of the religious sanities foreshadowing a quest for modest polity. For instance, let the economic liberty be fought for by those who fight for it, let the democratic procurators be the helmers of the alliance on the blankets of that broadened economy and let the national congress of and for African renaissance be the mental circumcisers of its heart-based foundation, swaart mense, and let the church be the church, else, there really is no picture for anything else, pre and post sittings of any delegation for whatever reason relevant to the hope a rescuing take of the black African and the white African simultaneously. You have the entire world at your disposal, do not ferment continual thralls at the expense of silence mistaken for suppressed weakness. We all want to live well, for 100% of the wishful, it is a taste at Comfort and Dignity: CD. Only.