Jacob Zuma is admired for the drive that took him — despite his lack of formal schooling — to the position of African National Congress national chair. But his close associates are not convinced he has the ability for the post of ANC deputy president.
Sources close to him say he is more of a backroom operator and strategist than a public politician. But, they say, if Mbeki is elected ANC president and Zuma his deputy, they will have to complement each other well.
As Mbeki is more of an academic and always in the office, Zuma will have to be “the smiling face of South Africa”. However, until now he has avoided the public eye and even his closest friends find it difficult to picture him smiling at the electorate. “Now we have a president who is very acceptable to the people and deputy president who spends a lot of time doing what the president should be doing. Zuma will take on Mandela’s role and Thabo will go on with what he is doing. But only if Zuma wins,” a close political associate says.
He says he uses the word “if” because he believes Zuma does not enjoy the support of branches like another candidate for the position, Mathews Phosa. The source says if Phosa was really no longer available as a candidate, this could hurt Zuma, as he believed branches might elect Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, despite the recent damaging allegations against her. “What happened to Frank Chikane in Gauteng?” he asks. Despite the support of the ANC leadership for Chikane, he lost the election for Gauteng ANC chair because he did not have the support of branches.
However, if elected, there could be an end to allegations that senior positions in the ANC are only held by Xhosa-speaking people. Zuma has a reputation as a man with deep respect for Zulu traditions.
A colleague in the Kwazulu-Natal government calls him “a source of inspiration” and “one of the world’s most talented men”. “He occupies very senior positions in this country without formal education. He normally boasts that all over South Africa not a single teacher can claim to have taught Zuma. His only education was Robben Island adult basic education classes up to standard eight,” the admirer says.
Born 55 years ago in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands at Nkandla near Kranskop, Zuma’s desire at an early age was to fight apartheid. He joined the ANC aged 17, despite its constitution stipulating that members should be 18. From 1960 he served 10 years’ imprisonment in Robben Island after being arrested while leaving the country for military training. Immediately after his release he succeeded in leaving for exile, and was based in Mozambique and Zambia. In exile, he rose to head the ANC’s intelligence department and to the position of deputy secretary general.
At the ANC’s 1991 conference he was again elected deputy secretary general. Three years later he was voted into the position of national chair after the party amended its constitution to enable him to hold the dual posts of the national and Kwazulu-Natal provincial chairs. Zuma’s 1994 election to head the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal followed a bruising three-way leadership tussle with then Southern Natal chair Jeff Radebe and KwaZulu-Natal Midlands chair and communist party stalwart Harry Gwala.
Critics point out that the battle divided the ANC in the province in the run-up to the elections, and say while Zuma was elected partly on the belief that his Zulu traditionalism would win over rural voters, this strategy has obviously failed, in part because of Zuma’s low public profile. He addressed only a few public rallies during the campaign.
Observers say he does not have a good track record as KwaZulu-Natal’s MEC for Economic Affairs and Tourism. Four years after he inherited the department from the KwaZulu homeland’s chief minister’s office, other departments are talking about delivery, but Zuma is still hiring staff. But colleague Mike Sutcliffe, who serves with Zuma in the provincial ANC, say many factors must be considered before judging his performance as MEC.
“He is the man behind the proposed King Shaka Airport and special development initiatives such as Maputoland, a project that will link Mozambique to South Africa. He is involved in large-scale industrial projects in Richards Bay, Durban and Pietermaritzburtg. Then there is also the development of Cato Manor and a number of peace initiatives,” said Sutcliffe.
Zuma’s peacemaking in KwaZulu-Natal has not produced any fruits yet, however. His special amnesty deal for Inkatha members seems to be dead, despite an effort spanning more than seven years on his part to bring the ANC and IFP back into the alliance they shared before 1979.
Zuma was the first ANC leader publicly to give credence to the notion of an eventual merger between the two parties. This effort followed closely on the heels of Zuma’s key role in fomenting King Goodwill Zwelithini’s September 1994 breakaway from the IFP — a move calculated to draw traditionalists away from the IFP, but one that failed.
But those close to him say bringing peace to KwaZulu-Natal is not something that will be achieved by one man, because of the complexity of politics in the province. However, they say he played a major role in cooling off the tense atmosphere that prevailed after the elections when the ANC, led by Gwala, refused to accept the election results.
Zuma’s former colleague says he is a weak manager. “He wants to have his hand on everything.” He added that if Zuma is to be the deputy president, he will need a strong administrative team, “otherwise it could be a disaster”.