For the first time since Zuma became president
After two years of avoiding the remedial action public protector Thuli Madonsela put forward on the Nkandla scandal, President Jacob Zuma this week drew praise from the ANC for his effort to “find a permanent solution to the Nkandla matter”.
But praise may be due to the ANC itself, and its alliance partners, which, through relentless pressure, are forcing Zuma to re-evaluate his approach on some problems, including Nkandla. His second term as ANC president is nearing its end, leaving him more vulnerable than ever before during his time in office.
Walter Sisulu University’s Somadoda Fikeni said the trust level between Zuma and those who were loyal to him had degenerated because of his many cabinet reshuffles since he took over as president. Other reasons Fikeni provided for Zuma’s vulnerability included divisions in the ANC in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal, the tensions between King Goodwill Zwelithini and the ANC, the revolt by ANC veterans against Zuma, the economic crisis, the high level of unemployment and South Africa’s fading influence in the African continent.
According to Ralph Mathekga, a political analyst at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection, it is the ANC’s backing of Zuma that has kept the president strong. Despite many court cases, including a rape trial and the allegations of acting corruptly in conjunction with Schabir Shaik, Zuma has yet to lose power.
In the case of Nkandla, he says, the pressure on Zuma has come from the opposition and not the ANC, which makes all the difference.
“We tend to mischaracterise where the pressure is coming from. We are doing the same thing with this issue of Nkandla,” Mathekga said. He added that Zuma has “mastered the internal processes of the ANC” to such an extent that he has become almost untouchable.
“I think he appropriated the internal processes of the ANC to the point where the ANC as a political party is not capable of instigating any recourse against him,” he said.
Despite Zuma’s attempt previously to downplay the effect the Nkandla scandal was having on the ANC, several internal surveys by the party and the government pointed to the scandal as a major contributing factor to the decline in the ANC’s electoral support.
Other senior ANC leaders, including the Northern Cape chairperson, John Block, the Western Cape chairperson, Marius Fransman, and his provincial secretary, Faiez Jacobs, have been forced to step down, pending investigations into their respective cases.
The ANC’s action against senior leaders comes after the party’s national general council resolved late last year to give teeth to its integrity commission and against any of its leaders who brought the organisation into disrepute.
Although some in the ANC complain that the integrity commission did not act against leaders such as Zuma, despite his having brought the party into disrepute on many occasions, it now appears senior leaders are beginning to have courage to challenge the ANC president whenever he steps out of line.
Zuma’s close allies in the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and Cosatu are now openly challenging some of his decisions, such as the firing of Nhlanhla Nene as finance minister and replacing him with the relatively unknown Des van Rooyen.
Zuma’s fellow officials in the ANC’s top six, including deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa and secretary general Gwede Mantashe, made it clear to Zuma that they were unhappy with his ill-conceived decision to appoint Van Rooyen and forced him to reverse it after consultations with business. The SACP and Cosatu have also expressed their unhappiness with Nene’s dismissal and told Zuma they were not going to defend his decision.
Cosatu and the SACP, which have been Zuma’s vocal supporters in the past years, broke ranks with him last week over his ties with the influential Gupta family.
Zuma has previously been accused by some in the alliance of allowing the Guptas to influence him on key decisions, including the appointment of Cabinet ministers. The Gupta family business, which has one of Zuma’s sons as a director, has benefited handsomely from multimillion-rand government contracts.
Cosatu is also planning to take on Zuma after he signed controversial reforms on the tax treatment of provident funds into law. Despite this, the union federation this week declared their unyielding support for Zuma.
Political analyst Shadrack Gutto believes senior leaders of the ANC were concerned about the erosion of the party’s hard-earned credibility as a result of Zuma’s actions.
“He is facing a lot of pressure within the ANC to do the right thing. Some leaders are beginning to realise that playing the role of cheerleader is damaging the party. The ANC is becoming unrecognised in society,” Gutto said.
Mathekga believes the president’s statement could give the ANC a way to score political points out of a saga that has plagued the party. With the announcement that Zuma has decided to pay back some of the Nkandla money, the party could hit back against opposition parties.
“It’s the remnants of the decision, the aftermath. What is it the ANC can salvage out of the decision?
“I think that their spin machine is already in place, where they’re trying to say the president has come forward, he said he is going to pay, [so] why are opposition parties dragging this thing [out] further?,” said Mathekga.