Yonela Diko | Ugilikanqo is gone: Is the ANC finally free of the Zuma ...
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In his rich and seminal memoir, the former member of the ANC's political council in Lusaka and former director-general (DG) of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Vusi Mavimbela, remembers a conversation he had with then president Thabo Mbeki in the early 2000s over and against Mavimbela’s effort to bring harmony to what was clearly a souring relationship between the president and his then deputy, Jacob Zuma. Mavimbela had worked with both in various capacities for almost 30 years in exile and was saddened by the deterioration in their relationship in government.
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Mbeki’s response to Mavimbela's efforts was frank and impatient. "Klaus (using Mavimbela's exile nom de guerre, clearly trying to awaken the DG's political consciousness), how do we leave the health and future of the ANC and government in the hands of such people? The man has no capacity to do the things we said need to be done; no capacity whatsoever. Right now, there is this blooming story about corruption, Schabir Shaik and so on. Do we want corruption to be acceptable and normal business in this government? That is precisely what will happen if we place our future in the hands of such a man. Is that what you people want?"
Mbeki’s concern about his deputy soon became a burden for the new democratic government as Zuma’s infirmities, lack of moral compass and lapses in judgement soon caught up with him when the Scorpions, established under the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) in 1999 to investigate high-profile cases, stumbled on enough evidence to declare a prima facie case against a sitting deputy president.
It was too soon for our new nation to have its deputy president under a cloud of criminality.
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Zuma’s response to the NDPP's declaration of such a case against him would signal the birth of ugilikanqo (the hairy monster). This was a political monster, and we had no way of knowing what its devastation would be. Would it begin to wreck everything in its path for its own survival or would it bow out and give the new country a chance? From that fateful day in July 2003, the entire state apparatus would be subjected to one singular goal: keeping Zuma out of prison.
The first salvo from Zuma in his fight for his political survival against the NDPP was to reach out to his old Natal machinery of ANC security and intelligence. He had a willing accomplice in Moe Shaik, an operative who had reported to Zuma in the pre-democracy era.
They accused Bulelani Ngcuka, the head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), of being an apartheid spy. They alleged that he had been investigated by this ANC intelligence arm and that it may well be that the "bitch was still on heat". They recruited former minister Mac Maharaj (who had been in the NPA’s crosshairs) into the Ngcuka assault.
While the Hefer Commission of Inquiry would later clear Ngcuka of all spy accusations, the ANC as an organisation was officially at war with itself. At stake was the political survival of one man and the political machination that would see a misuse of ideology to lure the left-leaning SA Communist Party and trade union federation Cosatu and present the survivalist as the champion of the working class. The strategy worked.
It was also important to present radicalism and tolerance of ill-discipline to lure young people against the incumbent, who seemed loath to any emotion or excitement.
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The marriage between Zuma, the alliance and the ANC Youth League meant that, by the time Zuma’s nakedness and immorality were crudely displayed in court, over rape allegations of a daughter of a friend, these organisations had no choice but to stand by their man.
They took Judge Willem van der Merwe’s chastisement of Zuma’s behaviour on the chin and ignored the obvious gilikanqo that lay ahead.
Political monster who wrecked a dreamAfter the courts declared that a corrupt relationship existed between Schabir Shaik and Zuma, Mbeki decided to free the state of the Zuma burden and allow him to handle his legal battles outside of government: in 2005, Mbeki relieved Zuma of his duties as deputy president of the country.
Two years later, the ANC elevated Zuma to be its president in Polokwane in 2007 and Zuma made the party pay dearly for that decision.
The ANC had to bend rules and crack the institutions of governance it had created to clear the legal way for its heavily compromised leader to be eligible for the presidency of the country.
Having done so, the ANC must have hoped Zuma would come into office and finally implement pro-poor policies and put the poor majority at the top of the government agenda. But Zuma had other plans: it would be him, his children and his cronies at the top of the government’s agenda. Having proven its willingness to bend rules for him, Zuma would push the ANC to the edge of perdition.
Zuma understood that the only way to prevent criminal charges against him in future and to guarantee his safety in the face of strong and independent institutions would be for him to be president and in charge of choosing heads of those institutions.
It would then be easier to choose compliant and complicit minions to lead these institutions, strip them down and take away their sting.
On the road to Polokwane, Zuma needed to present all his self-inflicted problems as political attacks by those who hated the working class and its “humble” leaders. Mbeki, in particular, needed to be portrayed as serving the interests of capital and needed to be replaced by the pro-poor and pro-ordinary people's leader: Gedleyihlekisa Zuma himself. The ANC bought it hook, line and sinker.
After Polokwane, it did not take long, however, for even Zuma's strongest supporters to see his true colours and feel his sting. By the time the ANC’s mid-term national general council sat in September 2010, the Zuma supporters, who had delivered him three years earlier as ANC president and then as the country's president in 2009, were already decrying what they termed an erosion of ANC traditional values. They were rejecting corruption and wanted a clear separation between party and state.
It was becoming clear, however, that Zuma was consolidating his powers and no longer needed his 2007 partners; at least, not the leaders.
He preferred different leaders in the alliance and Youth League, who would make the next ANC elective conference in Mangaung a walk in the park with embedded leaders. This meant the weakening of state institutions by choosing complicit and compliant leaders who had to also apply to ANC structures, the alliance and any other influential affiliates.
The ANC created a monster and stood by itThe first thing Zuma realised he needed, now that the ANC was willing to do anything to please him, was a house fit for a king. And the ANC government he was leading was going to pay for it.
The ANC paid for Zuma's private home – which cost more than its hefty price tag – in reputational damage: the loss of credibility and erosion of any moral superiority it had earned in blood and struggle for a century. The ANC president had to be 'secured in comfort', whatever the cost, whatever the sacrifice.
Zuma would go on to give the keys to the people's power to his transactional friends, the Gupta brothers, and they would run amok, violating national security, redirecting government budgets to their personal vanity projects, and hiring and firing cabinet ministers. Still the ANC was there, standing behind Zuma and protecting him from accountability.
When the arm of the law finally reached Zuma and he found himself in jail for the least of his multiple sins, the ANC found a way to soften the blows. He was given a "get out of jail free" card, and his shame was covered.
Zuma has abused the ANC, abused fellow comrades, misused the power of the state, and enriched his family and cronies; and the ANC has suffered irreparable damage for it, all in trying to stand by its flawed erstwhile president.
Zuma is ungratefulAfter everything the ANC has done for Zuma – bending principle for him to be president, supporting him as his basic appetites ruled over him, standing by him as he chose questionable characters to lead critical institutions for his own survival and even when he handed over the power of the people to his charlatan friends – he has now announced he is turning his back on the ANC and will not vote for the party that served him and protected him from all consequences.
The ANC has lost so much political capital by choosing Zuma over its own high principles. Now that the party is facing its toughest elections yet, Zuma is jumping ship and turning against the organisation.
While seeing the back of Zuma should have happened long before the public started losing confidence in the ANC, his departure may finally be a turning point in the ANC's long journey of renewal. It would even be more beneficial for the ANC if Zuma’s radical economic transformation followers joined him and left the ANC. An ANC free of Zuma and his minions is capable of remarkable things.
- Diko is a member of the ANC and former spokesperson for the department of human settlements
