President Jacob Zuma is on Thursday evening set to deliver the most important speech of his presidency thus far, but it comes at a time where politically he, as president, has never been weaker.
Anger at ‘big daddy’ Zuma grows
Zuma will tell the nation how he plans to stop the scourge of job losses, up the matric pass rate and give feedback on the national health insurance. He will also emphasise that government officials, including government ministers, will face action or even dismissal if they don’t deliver the goods. After a recession year that threatened to cripple government’s plans to deliver services to people, Zuma needs to reassure the nation that everything will be okay.
Although Zuma will have some good news about the recovery of the economy and may present a new jobs initiative involving the parastatals, which will stem the haemorrhaging of job losses due to the economic downturn, he is under pressure to show decisive leadership.
Government officials in economic departments are waiting with bated breath to hear whether he will provide clarity on the roles of Treasury and the Department of Economic Development in making macroeconomic policy, but he is expected to fudge the issue again to avoid conflict.
Recent revelations about his love child forced several of his constituencies to tone down their generally unconditional support for him, making him politically weaker than ever before during his presidency. The Cape Times reported on Thursday that more love children exist, but the Presidency responded that these children were never kept secret and always formed part of Zuma’s family, which consists of 20 children.
Disappointment
Many of his supporters, both inside and outside government, are disappointed with his style of leadership, which is consultative but indecisive. His second apology for his sexual conduct came last week — the first was during the rape trial of 2006. It was accepted by most people but dented the support that he received from ordinary South Africans and ANC members.
The Department of Economic Development is one of the new portfolios in Cabinet, but it has been unclear whether it is supposed to take over the responsibility of developing macroeconomic policy — a step that would render Treasury little more than the accounting arm of government.
Zuma is expected to focus his speech around improvements in education, health, job creation, rural development and crime, but details about how the promises will turn into action will be left to his ministers, who will outline their plans during media briefings in two weeks’ time.
The anniversary of the release of former president Nelson Mandela from prison will also feature in the speech, and Zuma is expected to draw on the sentiment of this occasion to deflate from recent events like the love-child revelations.
Before his address starts on Thursday night, Zuma will spend time in Paarl, where the ANC is celebrating Mandela’s release at the Drakenstein prison, Mandela’s final place of incarceration.