They may finally be ousting Jacob Zuma, but the ANC has no dignity left to salvage. By John McKee
Cape Town is thirsty.
As its dams dry to acrid desert, negotiation of everyday tasks are fraught. How
many litres to shower? How long to let the waste stink before the flush? Yet it
is the negotiations over a more far-reaching stink which asphyxiate South
Africa. Jacob
Zuma, the almost comically corrupt President, faces recall and resignation
as the leader of a nation which was once the great hope of Africa. As he begs,
bargains and plots his way to remain safe from the 783 – and counting – charges
of corruption within the cocoon of the presidency, his time finally appears to
have run out.
ANC Secretary
General Ace Magashule announced on Tuesday that Zuma has been recalled by the
powerful ANC National Executive Committee, as has one of his predecessors,
Thabo Mbeki. (Mbeki’s ousting was puppeteered by none other than Zuma himself.)
His recall was confirmed as the ANC parliamentary caucus has
scheduled a vote of no confidence to remove him as president on
Thursday, if he does not resign by the end of Wednesday. The irony is exceeded
perhaps only by the width of the grin we might imagine on Mbeki’s face as he
quenched his thirst for revenge, saying, “[the] interests of our country would be best
served if indeed Mr Zuma ceased to be President”
Zuma is being ousted
by his deputy and successor-elect Cyril Ramaphosa. He was once Mandela’s
favoured successor, but was brushed aside by the ANC leadership in favour of
Mbeki. Unlike his Robben Island-veteran compatriots, Zuma, a former ANC
intelligence chief, eschewed the erudite cosmopolitanism oozed by Mbeki or
Ramaphosa. He claimed to stand for the vast black poor of South Africa. But
after being gifted an expanding economy, he plundered it in daylight and his
own corpulent wealth has gorged on the nation’s finances. The difference in
stature between Mandela and this lesser uncle is Shakespearian in character,
and brings to mind Hamlet’s comparison: “So excellent a king; that was, to
this, Hyperion to a satyr”.
The charges against
Zuma are more numerous than I can list here, but chief among them and
stamped upon his legacy shall be the words “State
Capture”. The Guptas, a family of wealthy immigrants now largely domiciled
in Dubai, have lavished Zuma in funds and in exchange they have bought the very
levers of government: selling ministerial jobs; sacking anyone with a whiff of
integrity from the finance department; pawning huge government tenders mired in
bribery; bought the government’s nuclear energy policy. But the charges are not
limited to 30 pieces of silver or even 30 million rand. In dramatic news, it
has been reported this week that businesses owned by the Guptas have been
raided by South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime
Investigation, known as the Hawks. A powerful book was published last
year, written by Redi Thlabi. Thlabi was a friend of the late Fezekile
Ntsukela Kuzwayo who had accused Jacob Zuma of rape, a charge he was cleared of
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