Jacob Zuma took the first step in a thousand-mile journey this week when he made it clear that his sights are still fixed on the country’s presidency.
Zuma has until the African National Congress’s next national conference in 2007 to mount a challenge for the ANC leadership, as a bridge to the highest office.
However, commentators are unanimous that his prospects have been deeply dented by his dismissal as deputy president and subsequent resignation from Parliament. Once odds-on favourite, he is now considered an outsider.
Zuma was coy about his intentions this week, insisting he is not ambitious and will go where the ANC deploys him.
But his aim was clearly to signal that he is still in the race, and to capitalise on widespread sympathy and support in the tripartite alliance by projecting himself as a victim of political machination and apartheid justice.
The strategy of victimology was also apparent in his refusal to step down as deputy president, forcing President Thabo Mbeki to wield the axe.
He has stopped short of naming Mbeki as the arch-conspirator, while complaining that his case was mishandled and, allegedly, accusing the ANC of being party to the plot against him by withholding its full support.
Mbeki’s silky speech on Tuesday, in which he repeatedly stressed Zuma’s innocence and praised his contribution, was clearly calculated to avoid fuelling the victimisation claims.
In all his pronouncements since the sacking, Zuma has emphasised his humble and disciplined submission to the ANC, and that the movement, rather than “an individual” will decide his fate.
Some analysts argue that in his new capacity as full-time ANC deputy president, ensconced in Luthuli House and in regular contact with members, he will be well placed to advance his ambitions.
They also say the ANC is currently home to a range of aggrieved factions — including “the left”, Zulus, Travelgate MPs and delivery-starved local communities — which could begin to rally around Zuma as an anti-establishment symbol.
His imagery was that of an open-hearted reconciler and grass roots man, they pointed out, in contrast with Mbeki’s self-projection as a cold technocrat and centraliser.
But the consensus is that without state resources and the platform of office, Zuma now has a mountain to climb.
“He has no government job and his ANC post is unpaid,” remarked an ANC national executive committee (NEC) member. “He has lost his staff, access to the state propaganda machine and state-funded travel. How will he keep contact with and consolidate his diffuse support base?”
As an ordinary ANC member, also, he would have difficulty in maintaining a national profile and forfeit both the power of patronage — he once headed the ANC’s “deployment committee” — and ready access to power-brokers outside the party, such as business leaders.
ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama would not elaborate on Zuma’s new duties or the extent to which the ANC will resource him. The ANC constitution stipulates only that the deputy president must assist the president in discharging his duties and deputise for him if he dies or is incapacitated.
The NEC member pointed out that his freedom to promote his own cause would be severely circumscribed by working directly under Mbeki at Luthuli House.
The doomsayers insist Zuma’s popular support has been overstated outside KwaZulu-Natal, where it is partly ethnic, and the Eastern Cape, and emphasise that his case has not been taken up formally by any ANC structure. The “sound and fury” had mainly come from other organisations, such as the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu).
Little could be read into the toppling of Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool as provincial party boss, or the rejection of establishment figures at other provincial congresses. Zuma had not been mentioned once at the Western Cape meeting, said one delegate, who added that local dynamics and personalities were all-important in the elections.
Nor can Zuma necessarily depend on the unstinting support of the labour movement.
Most union leaders said this week they would continue to back him for the ANC presidency in 2007. But after Mbeki’s humiliation of Cosatu and communist leaders, there is also sharp criticism of the tactics of the left — and particularly of Zuma’s most ardent supporter, Cosatu general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi.
Vavi appeared deflated and resigned after Zuma’s dismissal, feebly telling journalists it was “a difficult day for the alliance” and pledging an urgent meeting of Cosatu’s executive committee to formulate a response.
The “urgent” meeting will apparently happen next week. No mass protest or other expressions of collective support for Zuma are expected.
One unionist complained that Cosatu had hoped “rather inchoately” that Schabir Shaik would be acquitted, or at least that the judgement would spare Zuma. It had no “plan B” or alternative candidate.
The unionist argued that the South African Communist Party, which believed strongly that Zuma, was the only potential left candidate for the presidency, had influenced Cosatu leaders.
Union critics hope chastened leaders will now turn from the naïve politics of personality, based on faith in Zuma as a “saviour of the left project”, to a renewed focus on policy and organisation.