South Africa and Zuma's machine gun
By Reuben Abati

WHAT meaning does the recent African National Congress (ANC) party election in Polokwane hold for the rest of Africa? Simply this: the South Africans are becoming politically African: they are beginning to behave like their kind in sub-saharan Africa. On December 18, in Polokwane, the ANC elected its new President, with former Deputy President, Jacob Zuma beating South African President, Thabo Mbeki, 2,329 votes to 1, 505. It was a heated, nerve-wracking process, run on high voltage and decibels. Other Africans should be interested in this development and the implications for the South African state in a post-apartheid season.

Those who have always suspected that South Africa, a much better organized country in spite of its many problems, would soon succumb to the African disease under black leadership and go the way of Zimbabwe, Nigeria etc can now look back on the ANC party elections and express fresh anxieties. The Mandela veil has been lifted.

For years, with the symbolism of Mandela's charisma and stature, the ANC looked like a party of good men. But the ANC today, is different. It is no longer a liberation movement that is shaped by high ideals; it is like other political parties in Africa, a party of ambitious men and women who are desperate for power and position and who would do anything, anything at all, to achieve their goals. South Africa is beginning to deal with the consequences of its post-apartheid reality. Black South African politicians are about to destroy the beauty of their nation's landscape. The signs are ominous.

National crises in Africa often begin with the kind of leadership and party crisis that marked the vote in the ANC Presidential contest between President Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. Former Deputy President Jacob Zuma not only won convincingly, he made it impossible for any of Mbeki's anointed persons to get a position in the new Party executive including his own former wife, the Minister of Foreign Affairs who is on Mbeki's side. This fierce succession war, the bitterest in ANC's 96-year old history, is the first major test for post-apartheid South Africa. It is also an ideological struggle for the future of the country. The ANC maintains an electoral hegemony. With a de facto one party state and a proportional representation system in place, it is now almost certain that Jacob Zuma is South Africa's next President in 2009.

The popular choice of Jacob Zuma is a loud comment on the Mbeki Presidency: its style and choices. It reaffirms Mbeki's growing loss of popularity not only within the ANC but among the black majority. Mbeki has simply lost the grounds within the same party that he has led twice. Thabo Mbeki as President has done a lot to promote South Africa internationally. His government has won the World Cup 2010 bid, kept inflation under control, annual economic growth is steady at 5 per cent. But the government is alienated from the people. Mbeki is unpopular among the black majority who after the general swoon of the Mandela era had been asking for post-apartheid dividends and greater economic freedom.

He has failed to connect with the grassroots. Services are poor, unemployment is high, the rural economy has failed. Despite government's housing programmes, the majority of blacks still live in match-box houses. The AIDS pandemic is explosive, the cost of drugs and access to healthcare for the poor is prohibitive. A neo-liberal, market-oriented economic policy may have brought Mbeki much popularity with foreign investors, the rich white community as well as the emerging black middle class, but most blacks do not see any difference between the ANC Mbeki government and the apartheid era National Party.

This has created a growing population of angry South Africans who want change by any means possible.. Jacob Zuma, a man who has been much vilified by Thabo Mbeki and the mainstream South African media is the voice for this disgruntled group. By turning Zuma into a victim, with the rape and corruption trials of 2005 and his eventual removal as Deputy President, the Mbeki Presidency only succeeded in making him more popular. JZ, as he is popularly called, is the rallying point for leftist inclinations in South African politics, with widespread support from such groups as the ANC Youth League, the Coalition of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the Communist Party of South Africa. His supporters readily declaim: "Give us back our Zuma or letha mshini wani" (bring my machine gun). Letha mshini wani is the title of an anti-apartheid song, embodying the frustrations and anger of a people. The battle of songs and rhetoric between Zuma and Mbeki's supporters in Polokwane was fierce and frightening. South Africa is usually praised for holding free and fair elections and perhaps this much is proven in Zuma's victory at the ANC elections.

In some other African states, an incumbent President would not allow himself to be humiliated at the party polls. In Nigeria, the party constitution would have been changed to keep Zuma out of the race. His supporters would have been arrested, clobbered or assassinated. The election itself would have been rigged; ballot boxes would have been stolen, stuffed with ballot papers and returned to the voting centre. Although the South Africans have not yet quite reached this stage, they appear to be learning the ropes quickly. Delegates to the ANC Convention were promised future political appointments. Mbeki's ministers were asked to mobilize their staff to vote for the President. Public funds and resources were used to facilitate personal interests. There were many abuses. And although Zuma won the party Presidency, there are plans to use the courts to stop him from becoming South Africa's President. The politics of personalities is the bane of African politics.

This is why there should be cause for worry about the future of this sub-saharan African state where there is still some measure of organization. President Mandela says he is "saddened" by developments within the ANC. Desmond Tutu says there isn't much choice between Mbeki and Zuma. The ANC is fragmented and damaged, and it may get worse. In typical African fashion, the Mbeki government has now decided to dredge up the corruption case against Zuma. The National Prosecution Agency (NPA) has now suddenly come up with enough evidence. In 2005, Zuma was relieved of his position as Deputy President to President Mbeki because of alleged corrupt deals. He was also charged for rape.

In both instances, Zuma argued that he was a victim of political persecution, and he got large numbers of sympathisers, Zulus and non-Zulu, to support him. With his victory at the ANC elections, Zuma has simply shown his former boss that he is a much smarter politician. Zuma is now Mbeki's boss, and in the last two years of his presidency, Mbeki may just be a lame duck President in the shadow of Zuma. A renewed trial of Zuma can therefore be seen as an act of vendetta on the part of Mbeki. It will widen existing wounds, possibly drive Zuma and his supporters underground and sow the seeds of likely violence. The ANC may even break up, resulting in the emergence of a new mainstream party. President Mbeki ought to have learnt his lessons by now. Even if the courts stop Zuma, there will still be problems.

But what kind of president can Zuma possibly be in 2009? I don't think that being popular is enough. He carries a heavy baggage. The man lacks formal education. He is morally dissolute and full of contradictions. He wants to deal with the AIDS issue. Yet, during his rape trial, he boasted that although he slept with a woman who was HIV positive, he took a shower afterwards to protect himself. He wants to introduce free education. How? By nationalizing the mines. He wants to empower the poor by dealing with the challenges of land ownership and redistribution of wealth. He wants to deal with crime as well. He also says he will protect the interest of investors. He accuses Mbeki of being soft on Mugabe, but is there any guarantee that Zuma would do any of the things he says on the stumps?

I do not share the optimism of those who think that what is happening in South Africa is good for the future of the country. Zuma's future government of gunslingers and rabid ideologues, dancers and singers may win the votes and the mind game against Mbeki, but the implications for the South African region could be dire. The people who surround Zuma are busy singing "bring my machine gun", they have little time to articulate coherent policies other than clichZ s. If the present atmosphere persists, white South Africans could begin to leave and take their money and skills with them. And if Zuma turns out to be as leftist as he is making out to his friends in COSATU, and the Communist Party, South Africa could become another Zimbabwe, and Zuma, another Mugabe. And that really, will be the beginning of yet another sad African story.

A major pitfall in African politics has been the limited choice between the bully and the buffoon as political leader. The bully pushes everybody around and gets them to do his bidding. The buffoon can sing and dance and mix with the people and he gets whatever he wants by simply saying the right things. The middle ground for the philosopher king is disappearing if it has not already disappeared completely. The African leader exploits the people's timidity or their love of song, dance and festival. Jacob Zuma is one of such crowd-pleasers; he is riding to power on the back of a well-crafted burlesque. He and Thabo Mbeki and their supporters should love South Africa more....

Robot  # 1 | 22.12.2007 00:07

WHAT meaning does the recent African National Congress (ANC) party election in Polokwane hold for th...Read the full article.

abdulmumin  # 2 | 22.12.2007 00:51

Zuma's victory proves that South Africa is a black african country afterall. Only a most interesting race like ours can consistently churn out the Zumas, Atikus, Objs, Bandas etc. I now begin to understand why Mandela would rather that he was succeeded by either Cyril Ramaphosa or Tokyo Sexwhale before the mighty ANC ruled for Mbeki. Mbeki lacks the common touch and is more disposed towards pleasing 'oyibos' amongst whom he was educated at the expense of the majority of those whom he governed. The consequence is now out for all to see. The ANC has literally installed a Mugabe and one does not have to be clairvoyant to predict that South Africa is headed for Zimbabwe. This is another African TRAGEDY!

What?  # 3 | 22.12.2007 04:39

The morals of Mr Zuma are no more complex than his counterparts in the west who have kept secret second “wives”(Mitterand) and “caned” impressionable young girls while in office (too many to mention). Sarkozy is wasting no time showing he is Europe’s “First Bachelor” and UN Ambassador of dating. I wonder if he is spending state money sending those “sweet” text messages. In Nigeria with an economy ¼ the size of South Africa and three times the population, the government is to pressured to provide the free everything with a chicken in every pot by the chattering class who see this as realistic. Somehow for Mr Zuma declaring this “Udoji” award is unrealistic, typical. Six months ago the NNPC and PHCN egged on by the Press promised all sorts of miracles and kegs of wine in order to stave invaders out of their fiefdoms. We are still waiting in line for petrol with kegs of stagnant water in darkness. The Nigerian people have not called those conjurers to task or even questioned whether their demands are unrealistic, instead we have become experts on South Africa taking medicine for another man's ailment. The African press should say their peace and keep it moving before they embarrass themselves. As for the Western press, it is their job to sell stories of Dragons, Fairies, Harry Potter, and Spaceships to the impressionable.

akuluouno  # 4 | 22.12.2007 06:20

Dear Oga Abati, I think I disagree with you on this one. I do not even catch your drift. Between bullies and buffons, who is what? Forget about Madiba's golden reign, Mbeki was a crass disappointment. If the people chose Zuma in a free and open elections so be it. I knew all the while that Mbeki and Our own Obj were reading from the same script when they wanted to out with their VPs. But, with the ANC's long and tested pedigree, TM could not push JZ. AA was pushed in Nigeria bc the largest party in the world was dancing to the tunes played by a bully. I think I now agree with you as to the buffon and the bully.:D:D:D:D The whole saga reminds of the parable of the greedy man and the envious man. Both approached a King who promised to double for the other what the one asks. The end of it all was that the envious man asked for one of his own eyes to be plucked out:twisted::twisted::twisted::idea::idea: There is no prize for guessing what happened to the greedy man. Happy Xmas villagers and may we all meet alive in 2008. Pardon my abscence for sometime, it was due to egregious circumstances rooted in the Nigeria factor.:mad:

ozoodoo  # 5 | 22.12.2007 06:51

ANC elected Zuma as its leader inspite of all the stench filled baggage he currently carries on his back. I agree with Abdulmumin that this is another African tragedy in the making!!!!

lionking  # 6 | 22.12.2007 07:04

Folks, What happened at Polokwane was more a protest vote against Mbeki than a positive affirmation of Zuma. As for Zuma himself, I don't think he'll go far. In fact, he is going down shortly. The corruption trials will finish him. But the key point is the fate of African leaders pandering primarily to local elite/Western business interests while ignoring the needs of their own people. Whoever succeeds Mbeki will learn from this episode to watch his back. Don't let the Western media coverage fool you. Much of this Western media hoopla is just hype borne out of fear for their economic interests. Zuma is not an economic dinosaur and for all the populist language, he knows better than to scare away white/Western business interests. The machine gun songs are to attract the votes of disenchanted black voters and will be abandoned if he becomes president. More importantly, the ANC is not the PDP; Zuma will implement ANC policy not his personal obsessions. The ANC has checks and balances and is an institution not an electoral machine like the PDP. Zuma can only stray so far from the party line. Mbeki has always been the preferred candidate of the West right from time back in the early 1990s. Remember how the Western media demonized Cyril Ramaphosa and Winnie Mandela back in the late 90s when it looked like either of them was more likely to succeed Mandela than Mbeki? BTW, did anyone note that Mandela did not come out to bat for Mbeki against Zuma? Truth is, Mandela does not really get on well with Mbeki and never wanted Mbeki to succeed him back in 1999 - he actually preferred Cyril Ramaphosa but Mbeki outplayed Ramaphosa with loads of support from white SA business interests and Western intelligence and media support. The rest is history - Mbeki became president and Ramaphosa is a billionaire businessman today. The West has never been comfortable with a genuinely popular African politician. They have always preferred Mbeki - that's why its paining them now that Zuma not only beat Mbeki hands down but his team has swept Mbeki's people from the ANC hierarchy. Mbeki repaid their support with, inter alia, pro-Western foreign policies e.g. undermining the AU and toeing the Western line at the UN. Domestically, his policies enriched a black elite and privileged Western/white business interests. Mbeki's Western backers forgot that the man was gradually destroying the bridges upon which he rode to power. Antagonizing other African countries and behaving as if SA is an extension of Europe in Africa. Imagine a man whose official CV makes no reference to the years he spent in Nigeria relaxing a luxury house in Ikoyi provided free of charge by the Nigerian government. This Zuma episode is the supreme irony. The West preaches democracy to Africa but are unwilling to accept the consequences of democracy such as Zuma's victory or the victory of the Islamists in the Algerian elections of 1991. We must all learn to accept the consequences of democracy which include the people making mistakes now and then; its part of the learning process. In particular, the West must learn to accept that Africans should be allowed to choose their own preferred leaders and not those anointed for them by the Western media.

lionking  # 7 | 22.12.2007 07:05

NY Times December 20, 2007 Survivor Is Poised to Lead South Africa By MICHAEL WINES Correction Appended POLOKWANE, South Africa — When Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, the man who is likely to be South Africa’s next president, was 21 years old, South Africa’s apartheid government condemned him to 10 years imprisonment on Robben Island, in a cell not far from that of Nelson Mandela. It was 1963, the nadir of the liberation movement: the jail was overcrowded, conditions were execrable, and freedom, much less national liberation, was a distant dream. Mr. Zuma set up a prison choral group to sing liberation songs, and organized weekend traditional dances. He told Zulu stories at night and delivered political lectures each week. Mr. Zuma received few if any visitors during a decade in jail, said Ebrahim Ebrahim, his cellmate, yet he was the self-appointed morale officer for his block. “The prison conditions were such that they wanted to break our morale and spirit,” said Mr. Ebrahim, who later followed Mr. Zuma into politics. “He wouldn’t be broken.” It could be his epitaph. Mr. Zuma, 65, has faced a hardscrabble childhood, illiteracy, war, a decade in jail and, most recently, a string of government prosecutions on charges of corruption and rape. Lazarus-like, he has surmounted them all. On Tuesday, more than 3,900 delegates of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress, chose him as their president, ousting Thabo Mbeki, who is also the leader of the country. In this democracy dominated by one party, Mr. Zuma’s win means he very likely will succeed Mr. Mbeki in early 2009 as president of South Africa, when a new Parliament will choose the next president. Mr. Zuma, a Zulu, was born in 1942 in a rural area, KwaZulu Natal, then called Natal. His father died when Mr. Zuma was an infant, and his mother moved the family to Durban to work as a maid. He grew up impoverished and without formal education. He joined the then-banned African National Congress at 17 and its military wing at 18. Apartheid forces arrested him in 1963 as he tried to leave the country and put him in prison, where he learned to read and write English. After his release from prison in 1973, Mr. Zuma left the country and returned when a ban on the A.N.C. was lifted in 1990. He became a close ally of Mr. Mbeki, and worked under him to end a bloody war between supporters of the A.N.C. and the rival Inkatha Freedom Party. “He had incredible patience,” said Blade Nzimande, who worked on the conflict with Mr. Zuma and now leads the Communist Party in South Africa. “If Zuma disagrees with you, he will not jump into the middle of your sentence and correct you. He’s a very persuasive character.” Others say Mr. Zuma’s crucial role was to make Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the Zulu chief who led the Freedom Party, feel that he was being taken seriously. In 1999, Mr. Mbeki appointed him deputy president. But early this decade, Mr. Mbeki suspected a political plot against him and confronted Mr. Zuma. Mr. Zuma denied any role, but the succeeding rift never healed. In 2005, Mr. Mbeki forced Mr. Zuma to resign after Mr. Zuma’s financial adviser was convicted of bribing Mr. Zuma in exchange for help with a contract for a French manufacturer. Mr. Zuma fended off a related corruption charge on procedural grounds, but the charges are likely to be refiled next year. Mr. Zuma’s fortunes dipped again in late 2005, when the H.I.V.-positive daughter of a family friend accused him of rape. Mr. Zuma, who is married, was acquitted, but his reputation was muddied after he suggested that the woman had seduced him by wearing a short skirt and sitting in a provocative manner. AIDS activists were scandalized when Mr. Zuma, who once headed South Africa’s AIDS-prevention efforts, said he had tried to avoid H.I.V. infection by showering after having sex with the woman. Curiously, the spectacle of the corruption and sex allegations proved a boon to Mr. Zuma’s political career. His vigorous denials of guilt drew broad support from ethnic Zulus, and his broad hints that Mr. Mbeki’s prosecutors had plotted to end his political career drew more support from leftists and poor people. Analysts say that Mr. Zuma became a magnet for a spectrum of groups unhappy with Mr. Mbeki’s aloof leadership, and that he deftly marshaled their discontent into a powerful movement. There is much discussion about what he will do with his mandate. Mr. Mbeki’s technocratic rule has produced a humming economy and approval from foreign investors, but fewer visible benefits for the poor. A widespread fear among both Mr. Mbeki’s supporters and many foreigners is that Mr. Zuma will heed his poor, leftist supporters and undo the economic policies of the last decade. But most people interviewed for this article, including political analysts, said that Mr. Zuma was no revolutionary and that South Africa was unlikely to swerve dramatically from the course that Mr. Mbeki has set. Nor do most of them fear that Mr. Zuma’s own legal problems presage a relaxed attitude toward corruption. Jeremy Gordin, a South African journalist and author, is writing a biography of Mr. Zuma. He said that outsiders may have inflated the importance of Mr. Zuma’s scandals beyond that felt by ordinary South Africans. Indeed, he said, Mr. Zuma’s political strength is that he is an ordinary South African. “He’s not an angel,” he said. “He’s just very human.” For South Africans who have lived under Mr. Mandela’s saintly rule and Mr. Mbeki’s antiseptic one, he said, Mr. Zuma’s fallibility is proving a powerful attraction. Correction: December 21, 2007 An article on Thursday about the selection of Jacob Zuma as the new leader of South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress, gave the incorrect age in some copies in describing when he was sent to prison by the former apartheid government. He was 21, not 24. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

WayoGuy  # 8 | 22.12.2007 08:07

=akuluouno;4294974748>Dear Oga Abati, I think I disagree with you on this one. I do not even catch your drift. Between bullies and buffons, who is what? Forget about Madiba's golden reign, Mbeki was a crass disappointment. If the people chose Zuma in a free and open elections so be it. I knew all the while that Mbeki and Our own Obj were reading from the same script when they wanted to out with their VPs. But, with the ANC's long and tested pedigree, TM could not push JZ. AA was pushed in Nigeria bc the largest party in the world was dancing to the tunes played by a bully. I think I now agree with you as to the buffon and the bully.:D:D:D:D The whole saga reminds of the parable of the greedy man and the envious man. Both approached a King who promised to double for the other what the one asks. The end of it all was that the envious man asked for one of his own eyes to be plucked out:twisted::twisted::twisted::idea::idea: There is no prize for guessing what happened to the greedy man. Happy Xmas villagers and may we all meet alive in 2008. Pardon my abscence for sometime, it was due to egregious circumstances rooted in the Nigeria factor.:mad: Akuluouno: You wrote that "if the people chose Zuma in a free and open election so be it". That sums up my own feelings on this interesting choice too. P.S. Welcome back to the square, sista. I hope I have nothing to fear (rooted in the Nigeria factor) as I, too, prepare to make my holiday trip to Naija.

Dapxin  # 9 | 22.12.2007 09:04

=WayoGuy;4294974762>Akuluouno: You wrote that "if the people chose Zuma in a free and open election so be it". That sums up my own feelings on this interesting choice too. P.S. Welcome back to the square, sista. I hope I have nothing to fear (rooted in the Nigeria factor) as I, too, prepare to make my holiday trip to Naija. Hmnn. even if the only policy leaning this guy used was being able to dance ? This is another african tsunami in the making and it is most unfortunate.

Dapxin  # 10 | 22.12.2007 09:13

=lionking;4294974757>Folks, What happened at Polokwane was more a protest vote against Mbeki than a positive affirmation of Zuma. As for Zuma himself, I don't think he'll go far. In fact, he is going down shortly. The corruption trials will finish him. But the key point is the fate of African leaders pandering primarily to local elite/Western business interests while ignoring the needs of their own people. Whoever succeeds Mbeki will learn from this episode to watch his back. Don't let the Western media coverage fool you. Much of this Western media hoopla is just hype borne out of fear for their economic interests. Zuma is not an economic dinosaur and for all the populist language, he knows better than to scare away white/Western business interests. The machine gun songs are to attract the votes of disenchanted black voters and will be abandoned if he becomes president. More importantly, the ANC is not the PDP; Zuma will implement ANC policy not his personal obsessions. The ANC has checks and balances and is an institution not an electoral machine like the PDP. Zuma can only stray so far from the party line. Mbeki has always been the preferred candidate of the West right from time back in the early 1990s. Remember how the Western media demonized Cyril Ramaphosa and Winnie Mandela back in the late 90s when it looked like either of them was more likely to succeed Mandela than Mbeki? BTW, did anyone note that Mandela did not come out to bat for Mbeki against Zuma? Truth is, Mandela does not really get on well with Mbeki and never wanted Mbeki to succeed him back in 1999 - he actually preferred Cyril Ramaphosa but Mbeki outplayed Ramaphosa with loads of support from white SA business interests and Western intelligence and media support. The rest is history - Mbeki became president and Ramaphosa is a billionaire businessman today. The West has never been comfortable with a genuinely popular African politician. They have always preferred Mbeki - that's why its paining them now that Zuma not only beat Mbeki hands down but his team has swept Mbeki's people from the ANC hierarchy. Mbeki repaid their support with, inter alia, pro-Western foreign policies e.g. undermining the AU and toeing the Western line at the UN. Domestically, his policies enriched a black elite and privileged Western/white business interests. Mbeki's Western backers forgot that the man was gradually destroying the bridges upon which he rode to power. Antagonizing other African countries and behaving as if SA is an extension of Europe in Africa. Imagine a man whose official CV makes no reference to the years he spent in Nigeria relaxing a luxury house in Ikoyi provided free of charge by the Nigerian government. This Zuma episode is the supreme irony. The West preaches democracy to Africa but are unwilling to accept the consequences of democracy such as Zuma's victory or the victory of the Islamists in the Algerian elections of 1991. We must all learn to accept the consequences of democracy which include the people making mistakes now and then; its part of the learning process. In particular, the West must learn to accept that Africans should be allowed to choose their own preferred leaders and not those anointed for them by the Western media. If every affirmation you allude to here is anything to go by, then there isnt anything to worry about . I have always been concerned, I won't be forming a balanced and sensible opinion by reading western newpapers and I am sincerely looking to get rational perspectives on this issue. Thanks for these insights.

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