Perhaps the most salient lesson of the Thabo Mbeki era was that no president can govern as an aloof and irreproachable genius who does not take counsel, either from his advisers, from his trade union partners, or from the media, civil society and broader public.
With hindsight Mbeki must see that he donated this political support to his adversaries and lost his job as a result.
Jacob Zuma’s consultative and consensus-seeking style, very much in evidence since he moved into the Union Buildings, is a welcome change.
But an appreciation of the importance of consultation and conciliation should not mean that the president becomes paralysed between alternatives — his leftist allies, for example, and his grand vizier, Trevor Manuel.
A president has to listen, and when he is done listening he must be decisive and accountable.
Zuma’s state of the nation address had a ring of familiarity, not just in the obvious sense that bits of it sounded a lot like Manuel. Beneath the workmanlike project plan the same approach that paved his way to Polokwane was evident: being everything to everyone. Even where factors far beyond his control limit what he can do, Zuma sought to do it to placate his allies.
Given the slow-grinding government machinery and a miserable economic outlook, it is highly unlikely that the government can create half-a-million jobs in the next six months. In fact, what he promised was job opportunities. What does that mean, exactly? Not much, if no one can take advantage of them.
The same questions arise about the pledge of four-million job opportunities in five years through the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP). The one million short-term EPWP jobs that he trumpeted in his speech took more than three years to achieve. Zuma has to be honest with South African citizens and with his friends.
He cannot promise the taxi industry that he will stall bus rapid transit plans when local authorities have signed multi-million service contracts for the development of such infrastructure in time for the World Cup next year.
He has to say that while government will consult it will not be held hostage by threats of unrest. Zuma’s mantra is that all civil servants and politicians will be held responsible for their performance and those who fall short will be removed.
He has repeated it often enough for us to start believing that he really is committed to it. It will be interesting if civil servants start telling Collins Chabane’s monitors that they can’t perform because the president has thrown a spanner in the works.
That said, it is heartening that some of Zuma’s allies, notably Cosatu, have not rolled over and basked in the glow of having their man in office.
It is healthy that the trade union movement does not view itself as a battering ram to be used against anyone who challenges the Zuma presidency but, is itself at the forefront of challenging him. This robust approach can only entrench a culture of accountability and transparency.
At the height of their campaign against Mbeki, Cosatu and the SACP argued that they valued Zuma’s leadership style because ”Ubaba listens”. Listening has its merits, but Zuma is president now and he needs to act: boldly, independently and presidentially in the interests of all of us.
Football security: fix it now
Security, not transport, or the quality of hotels, or the cost of the flight, is the number one concern of foreigners considering whether to visit South Africa for the Fifa World Cup next year. It is also the biggest issue for the international news media, which will have an enormous influence on whether fans decide to spend their increasingly scarce cash on the long trip to South Africa.
We loathe the droning Afro-pessimism of much of the European press on this subject. ”Wrong,” we want to shout. ”South Africa is not a crime-ridden ghetto. The management teams at the organising committee, the stadiums, the sponsoring companies are capable and committed. This is going to be a great World Cup.”
So we are sad and angry to have to report this week that security preparations for next week’s Fifa Confederations Cup, the dress rehearsal for 2010, are in a dangerous shambles.
Until we asked questions of the organising committee last week, no security provider had been contracted. When the committee, apparently prodded by our interest, scrambled to fix things, it quickly made the situation worse, appointing a company with extremely limited experience and capacity.
Equally disturbing, the committee has been stonewalling our requests for information about security and other tenders, claiming that it is not governed by rules related to government finances and does not have to tell us anything. And yet the Dalai Lama was barred from coming to South Africa on the grounds that the peace conference he was supposed to attend was, as an Organising Committee event, a government platform. Quite apart from that, the committee is beyond doubt a national institution, and must comply with the highest standards of transparency in terms of both the spirit and the letter of the law.
We have been reduced to exchanging lawyers’ letters with a body that should be delighted to tell us how it is conducting business in a rigorous, open fashion to secure the maximum benefit for taxpayers’ massive investment in the Confederations Cup and 2010.
It is time for both Fifa and the national government to step in, knock some heads together and clean house. The situation is beyond urgent.