A friend of mine from Mthatha told me he went to his grandfather's 90th birthday. In his speech, he said in Xhosa: "Some of you wonder why I have lived so long. It's because I'm afraid to die. Not because I think I am going to hell. I'm afraid of standing in front of God and answering him about what is happening to this country. What would I even say to him? We were so hopeful and now this?"
I was greatly amused by a tweet I saw recently: "Keep your Nkandla, give us back our South Africa. #fb." It was by the ever-ungovernable Kay Sexwale. I was entertained by the tweet because I have heard people say the same thing in one way or another. To tell you the truth, I am inclined to agree with them, not because I am anti-Zuma, but because I am pro-South Africa and, in a way, pro-Zuma.
The president needs to build a better legacy for himself than the dubious one that seems to be emerging. He will forever be dogged by questions regarding his personal life and how he has run his government, including friendships he has made while at the helm. There will also be questions around how rapidly members of his family have amassed extraordinary fortunes once he got into power, whereas many of them were ordinary citizens before that.
It could be argued, of course, that they suddenly developed an incredible sense of business acumen in this time frame, or that the Thabo Mbeki administration held them back because of the epic battle the two politicians fought. That argument is moot of course. For one thing, Tokyo Sexwale was rumoured to have fallen out with Mbeki, yet he was able to amass a great deal of wealth in his time in the wilderness.
There is a widely held view within the ANC that our president is not a good one, both of the country and the ruling party. But voting for him for a second term as leader of the ANC was a good political move on their part. It was a case of "this guy is not good but we have to vote for him". It seems that Zuma is good at getting what he wants, but not great at doing good with it.
Zuma should do what Nelson Mandela did: he was never forced out, but he knew that he was a) old and; b) Mbeki would do a much better job as president than he ever would, and so stepped down in 1999 after one term as president. Mandela reiterated this in 2004 during a special joint sitting in Parliament celebrating 10 years of democracy, "I have said it so often, but want to repeat it here at what must certainly be the last time that Parliament will bend its own rules to allow me to address it: no president or prime minister in the history of this country can claim to have done more for the people and the country than has been achieved by president Thabo Mbeki.
"He is a modest man and I know he would prefer that I do not sing his personal praises, but his achievement as president and national leader is the embodiment of what our nation is capable of. Public acknowledgement of his achievements is to affirm ourselves as a nation, to assert the confidence with which we face our national future and conduct ourselves on the international stage."
Zuma would never have the courage to quit like Mandela did. Mandela did not need the permission of the ANC – he told the ANC that's what he wanted and the party accepted when he stepped down. The country has never done better than during his reign as president. The ANC almost got 70% of the vote during the Mbeki presidency, so it would seem even the electorate agreed with Mandela.
Sadly, the ANC will lose voters in every single province once again, bar KwaZulu-Natal in next year's elections. The ANC knows this. What the ANC also knows is that the president will be the main reason for those losses. Yet many people will be working day and night to stop the haemorrhaging. They will know what the real problem is but will be too afraid to face it head on.
Back to what Kay Sexwale wrote, I would be inclined to agree to a deal where the president gets to keep Nkandla, no investigation into the arms deal, we leave the spy tapes, we don't revisit the corruption case against him – but only if he decides to step down and let his deputy in the ruling party take his place instead in the next election. Or at least let a younger man take over, such as Malusi Gigaba. I gave the reasons why I think Gigaba could be president in this column last year in the run up to Mangaung.
If Zuma were pro-himself, he would step down and admit there are people in the ANC who could handle the job better than him and allow them to flourish. He would be the bigger man and we would forever remember him for being a bigger man than we ever gave him credit for. The question is this: would the president have the courage to quit?
I know he hates the fact that he is doubted in everything he does. He wants to prove the doubters wrong. Yet, the longer he stays, the more he proves the doubters right. I never want to remember my president that way. Unfortunately human nature is prone to remembering the things we do wrong more so than the things we do right. I genuinely like Zuma as a person, but as a president, I have many question marks.
As things stand, he will run in 2014, and that will cost the ANC. The opposition is praying he runs. The ANC will keep quiet and pretend is fine and will attack anyone who makes any suggestions that the president steps down.
As Harry Truman once said: "Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
Luckily we have not reached a stage where we are afraid to say what we really think. I'd hate to be the president right now. He must feel like he is under siege, doubted by everyone. He should do what's right for the country. A leader should have his eyes set on history: "Did I leave the country and its institutions better or worse than I found them?" Zuma should seek to be better than his predecessors.