/ 19 November 2015

Zuma’s last laugh in Parliament

Zuma told ­Parliament he did not know how to stop his laughter.
Supporters of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita ahead of the July 29 vote (Luc Gnago/Reuters)

“You can’t be saying you want a solution when you actually create the problems,” President Jacob Zuma told Parliament on Thursday afternoon.

He was not speaking about plans to buy a new VIP jet for his use, at a price of up to R4-billion, but about Israeli settlements constructed in disputed territory.

And then: “Accountability mechanisms exist already… [although] it is clear that such mechanisms need to be streamlined and improved.”

Here he was not speaking about the decisions of various government departments that greatly improved his Nkandla complex at state expense, but about plans to make universities less autonomous.

In his last appearance in Parliament for the year, Zuma managed to avoid dealing with the most controversial questions of 2015, with opposition parties failing to corner him on the Nkandla and Chancellor House scandals, and resorting – in evident desperation – to digs about his tendency to break into fits of laughter.

“This difficult period,” Zuma said, snuffling back a fit of giggles while doggedly reading an answer to a question on drought alleviation, “requires the cooperation of all in the country.

“We call,” and he broke into laughter, “on all to save water and adhere to water restrictions.”

As El Niño continues to devastate the countryside, and food prices rise while animals drop dead, that recording will make its way into many a rural campaign for local government elections.

Zuma was, of course, not laughing about the worst drought in the history of democratic South Africa, but about the antics of the Economic Freedom Fighters in trying to interrupt him and, with a somewhat ­me-too Democratic Alliance, trying to portray him as not taking seriously the many crucial issues facing the country.

“The president has said absolutely nothing to the question, and then he laughs!” exclaimed EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi in mock outrage. “This is, I’ve been telling him, this is not Trevor Noah’s show … the people of South Africa want answers.”

Zuma was having none of it.

“I don’t know how to stop my laughter,” he told Ndlozi a short while later.“I don’t know how to stop my laughter … is it hurting?”, he asked with a frown of concern that seemed exactly as serious as Ndlozi’s outrage.

Neither the DA nor the EFF were on the question paper for Thursday’s oral responses by Zuma, but the two biggest opposition parties dominated the floor during two hours mostly taken up by supplementary questions as they sought to outmanoeuvre Zuma, as both have done at various times during earlier parliamentary sessions.

An unusually relaxed Zuma, however, made for difficult prey this time, falling into babbling only in his second attempt to explain his remarks earlier this month that he puts the ANC first and the country second – the only barbed question the opposition actually landed.

“If I address the ANC I am an ANC president in addition to being a president of the state, elected by ANC members,” Zuma said.

“This house did not elect me to be the president of the ANC. You are making a big mistake … I was elected first by the ANC as a president and then given a task to lead a campaign as the ANC president before I was the state president… When I speak to the ANC members I speak to the ANC members.

“When I speak to the country, I speak to the country … Who came first? Was it a democratic country or the ANC. Who came first? Who came first? Who came first? Who came first?”

And then he laughed, his deep and long belly laugh.