/ 6 June 2009

Zuma aims to please everyone…

If delivering a state of the nation address were a popularity contest, President Jacob Zuma would win it hands down.

If delivering a state of the nation address were a popularity contest, President Jacob Zuma would win it hands down.

Although his speech on Wednesday lacked flowery language and beautiful turns of phrase it spoke directly to the issues and asked for unity of purpose and patriotism. Above all, though, it sought to make everyone happy.

By contrast, his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, was loath to be seen responding to public pressure or to issues raised by the opposition and the media (his pet hates). Classic Mbeki was seen during the debate following his 2007 state of the nation address.

Responding to the accusation that he appeared unmoved by the high level of crime, he exploded. ”For 64 years I have never had the ability or the courage or the need to resort to grand theatrical gestures,” he thundered.

”There will be no empty theatrical gestures, no prancing on the stage and no flagellation. I know for a fact that the overwhelming majority of the masses of our people would be gravely offended if tomorrow, to respond to the demands of Pharisees, I should take to the stage to weep tears meant for the camera.”

Zuma, you feel, is entirely happy to take to the stage and weep ”tears meant for the camera”.

He certainly does not risk gravely offending the masses of our people and he has often been accused of being a populist —- of telling each of his constituencies what it wants to hear. He is never a bearer of bad news or uncomfortable hard truths and often seeks to reach out to whomever he is interacting with.
On Wednesday he was interacting with the whole nation and so his speech was tailored to reach out to all of us:

  • To those preoccupied with Zimbabwe he acknowledged, without qualification — unlike Mbeki — that the plight of Zimbabweans has had a negative effect on the SADC region, especially South Africa;
  • To the South African public, particularly the opposition and the media, he promised that ”we will hold Cabinet ministers accountable through performance instruments, using established targets and output measures”;
  • To a society frustrated with poor service from civil servants he promised a presidency hotline that will handle each public inquiry as if it were the only one;
  • To teachers and parents of school-going children he promised to meet school principals to share his vision of the revival of our education system;
  • To pupils and parents he promised to take serious and decisive action against teachers who enter into sexual relationships with children;
  • To taxi owners and local authorities implementing the bus rapid transport system he promised to deal properly with their concerns;
  • To the unemployed he promised to create four million job opportunities (even if they are not decent jobs);
  • To potential investors he promised to lower the cost of doing business;
  • To small business he promised to reduce the regulatory burden;
  • To his allies he promised that the economic downturn ”will not alter the direction of our development”; and
  • To workers facing retrenchment he promised to have them kept in employment ”for a period of time” and re-skilled.

Whether he will deliver on all these undertakings will depend on his team’s readiness to knuckle down to hard work and on the resources for delivery that economic conditions allow.

But the overall question persists: is Zuma just a plain populist or a sincere leader who means well and wants the best for everyone?