Changing fortunes: Much has happened since the ANC’s 53rd national conference in Polokwane in 2012, not least the fact that most of former president Jacob Zuma’s allies have abandoned him. (Delwyn Verasamy/M&G)
In 2008, former president Jacob Zuma came head to head with the judiciary. He was charged with corruption in a case that would — eventually — span more than a decade. The tide was different back then. Zuma had beside him a formidable political list of allies who would pave the way to his presidency.
At the time, Zuma would arrive at the Pietermaritzburg high court with an army of politicians who chanted that they would die for him. His rise to the highest office was certain. Former president Thabo Mbeki, his opponent at the time, was limping.
The ANC Youth League, under Julius Malema; the trade union federation Cosatu; the vanguard movement known as the South African Communist Party; and the majority of the national executive committee (NEC) at the time all banded together behind Zuma.
Zuma seemed almost indestructible. He was the darling of the people and even some of the media elite have admitted to having been drawn into the Zumaphoria.
More than a decade later, the tables have turned. The man who once held the reins of the governing party is languishing in a cell at the Estcourt correction services facility in KwaZulu-Natal.
Zuma’s allies have abandoned him. His support base in his own KwaZulu-Natal province is dwindling and the ANC has left him out in the cold.
Zuma has a handful of NEC members brave enough to speak on his behalf, most of them tainted by corruption allegations themselves. The king of the Zulu nation has even chastised those of his subjects who flocked to Nkandla to pledge their support. The SACP and Cosatu have each called for Zuma’s arrest and Malema has formed his own political party. Some of his strongest allies in 2008 have even gone on an apology tour to Mbeki.
Many analysts could say that this is the nature of ANC’s politics. Some people argue that Zuma deserves his punishment; others argue that the former president’s taunting of the Constitutional Court was the last straw. Whatever the reason, his remaining allies in the ANC’s NEC — the party’s highest decision-making body between conferences — fear for their own political lives.
“It’s uncertain times for us,” one NEC member tells the Mail & Guardian. Like many others, the NEC member, who spoke to the M&G on condition of anonymity, is bold enough to talk to the media, but lacks the courage to speak openly.
Suspended secretary general Ace Magashule, arguably the only powerful ally of the former president in its NEC, is facing his own demons with the law.
The NEC member concedes that their faction, dubbed the radical economic transformation (RET) faction, is on “life support”.
“What [President Cyril] Ramaphosa has done is to come at us through processes, because he is a product of the legal processes. This NEC is a product of the judiciary. The CR faction won the Nasrec conference because of the courts. It’s a system that is working for him for now,” the NEC member said.
In the build-up to the Nasrec conference, which elected Ramaphosa as president by a slim margin ahead of Zuma’s proxy Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was marred by court challenges.
The Eastern Cape conference, which elected Oscar Mabuyane (a loyal ally of Ramaphosa), and the KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and North West conferences all faced court challenges.
Apart from the Eastern Cape, which was divided at the time between Ramaphosa, Zweli Mkhize and Dlamini-Zuma, these provinces were dominated by branches who favoured Zuma.
Another party leader close to Magashule believes that although many of the NEC members will be outraged by the thought of a former president of the ANC sleeping in a cold cell, “it will be business as usual” when the NEC meets this weekend.
“The Ramaphosa faction is winning. We know that the SG [secretary general] will lose his case at the [Pretoria] high court. All we can do now is to sit and wait for the enemy to make a mistake. Then we can pounce; for now, we are at their mercy,” they said.
Magashule is challenging his suspension, arguing that the step-aside resolution crafted at the Nasrec conference was unlawful.
Another NEC member, who is neither known to be in the RET nor CR factions, warns that the ANC has set itself up for future turmoil by allowing the incarceration of a former president.
“When we removed Mbeki dishonourably, little did we know that it would come back to haunt us in the form of Zuma. We set a precedent that a president can be recalled after his service. This happened when Zuma was removed,” they said. “Now we have even gone a step further. We have set another precedent that when a president finishes his term in office, he will go to jail.”
The NEC member argues that although many members of Ramaphosa’s faction might celebrate, this will be short-lived
“The battle lines are drawn. The beggars are out and what you can expect now is the same scenario of 2008, when NEC members openly challenged the ANC,” the party leader continued.
ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini is one such leader. She has now penned an open letter in defence of Zuma, saying that the judgment against him meant that South Africa was heading to fascism.
“The democratic institutions are going to turn into nothing but a veneer covering the judicial dictatorship and authoritarianism. Zuma’s political persecution is not about justice or the crafty narrative South Africans are sold about ‘the rule of law’. If it was so, he would not face harsh criticism when using the same laws to protect his rights,” wrote Dlamini.
She wrote that the Zuma case is called exceptional and extraordinary not because of anything he did, but because the laws were so severely bent to achieve political ends against him.
“Many years from now, when we look back at these events as history, we will see how law became a weaponised instrument against political opponents. Zuma is going to remain a symbol of resistance against that injustice. When the law ceases to serve its intended purpose but becomes an instrument of the ruling class, it ceases to be law. When law becomes a political tool by those in power, it must be fought head-on, and vehemently resisted,” she wrote..
Dlamini’s open letter stands in stark contrast to the NEC’s statement, which expressed an “unequivocal commitment to and defence of the constitution, in particular the supremacy of the constitution, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, among the founding principles and values of the country.”
Deputy secretary general Jessie Duarte read out a statement that criticised party members who wore ANC-branded T-shirts in support of Zuma and promised to take up arms against the police at Nkandla last weekend.
“Our commitment to a constitutional democracy encompasses a commitment to fundamental change or radical social and economic transformation so that all can enjoy the socioeconomic rights enshrined in the constitution,” she said.
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