More often than not, poor leadership at the top of a functioning democracy does greater immediate damage to the governing party than it does to the country. It sets loose internal forces that can lead to a change of leadership, to electoral losses or to splits in the party.
So it should be intensely reassuring to democrats that President Jacob Zuma’s government is in such obvious chaos. It means that these centrifugal forces are, after only 16 years, opening the kinds of cracks in the African National Congress that took twice as long to manifest themselves in the old National Party.
Zuma’s presidency is characterised by hesitancy and ambivalence. He appears to be abroad as often as his predecessor Thabo Mbeki was.
But whereas Mbeki stomped the international stage in pursuit of a personal vision — the African renaissance — Zuma’s cross-border getaways seem a bit like those of a kid in a dysfunctional family. He just wants sleepovers in order to escape from all that stressful conflict at home.
To keep together such a disparate array of factions, as comprises the tripartite alliance, demands strong leadership, the unambiguous exercise of power, with dissenters swiftly marginalised and despatched. Mbeki was a despot not only by nature but also by necessity.
Zuma, in contrast, is an equivocator. The crown sits uneasily, with what increasingly looks like a non-renewable sticker pasted to the side. Whatever Zuma’s true nature — it is disconcerting that the hammer of the apartheid spies during the struggle years seems to be such an affable fellow — the tenuousness of his position forces him to tread lightly among his jealous and ambitious courtiers.
Problematically for Zuma, a result of hesitancy is that it accelerates the factional forces within a party. Suddenly space is open for contention, allowing plots and counter-plots to flourish and an increase in the jostling for influence.
Even the one issue around which he might have hoped to rally his forces, the always carping and supposedly perfidious media, has not helped much. While the SA Communist Party has come out in enthusiastic support of the proposed Protection of Information Bill, the Congress of SA Trade Unions has been as implacably opposed.
And while the SACP supports the idea of a media tribunal, Cosatu remains divided and as yet undecided. According to the Sowetan, a number of unions have privately voiced concerns that it takes SA down the banana republic route. The ANC, in turn, has had to slap down publicly the over-exuberant Youth League, which wants to jail “treasonous” journalists.
In the meantime, Tokyo Sexwale, minister of human settlements, has stated at separate public events that a “sinister” ANC plot against the media “can’t happen, shouldn’t happen” because it would be “unconstitutional” and “running against any value that Mandela stands for; that I stand for”. The proposed tribunal was merely being debated and was far from being a “done deal”.
While it is no secret that Sexwale sees himself as a potential successor to Zuma, for him to stake out a position that differs starkly from that of Zuma indicates that there is plenty of disquiet within the senior ranks on the issue.
And it is not only the media that is a divisive issue. Because of Zuma’s inability to lead firmly, an array of matters is pushing up internal temperatures in the ANC. There’s land distribution, mining rights, and nationalisation, to name a few.
The ANC is a coalition of ideologies and coalitions that are inherently weak. It takes adroit and inspired leadership to hold them together. Zuma has proved to be nimble but has so far failed to display any kind of vision that the ANC, never mind the country, can unite behind.
You’re right in your assessment that poor leadership may rent the ANC asunder. My feeling is that the tripartite alliance will be the first to go.
However, there is a fear. The ANC’s reach into the country’s fabric goes deep, and they may take the country with them when they do finally go down.
Other political organisations are too weak to quickly step into the breach when the ANC falls apart. It will get very ugly indeed.
Hm. Yes, well. We saw on TV, 50/50, the brewing crisis with the massive sewerage aqueduct near Diepkloof and Dainfern. Thieves have stripped it of a kilometre of aluminium cladding; the specialised concrete has been exposed to sun and sharp temperature changes and is now cracking. Billions of litres of dooda are likely to burst forth and engulf the area, and destroy river systems and poison the public. The cladding round the dooda line of the ANC is also stripped and the cracks are appearing and soon, very soon, BOOM! A sea of poo, a torrent of shite, a mighty toxic failure. Pray keep away from the area my friends lest you be tainted, flooded, swept off in the dwang.
SA is rapidly moving from a black/white society to a rich/poor society. The tripartite alliance -born in the struggle against apartheid- has lost its significance, goal and direction.
The remnants of the alliance will be staying around until the ANC has experienced a significant loss in political power. Such a loss will dry up the powerful and lucrative positions currently for grabs. The alliance will subsequently crumble.
What will grow on the ruins? For now, anybodies guess. A proper socialist party would be a desirable outcome. It could bring the current conflicts between workers and government into parliament. It belongs there in a democratic society.
Vavi seems to be putting his han up as a contender, by openly talking of paralysis in government. How he can harness the dissatisfaction with Zuma’s failure to implement the Pololwane resolutions, and spearhead the strike (which is becoming unpopular amongst a lot of the public who were initially sympathetic) will be interesting
Leadership in South Africa? What Leadership? The only ship that we have is a gravy ship as each ANC cadre tries to top up their own cargo.
An excellent summing up of Zuma’s leadership, but isn’t the lovely Tokyo Sexwale just another expedient and ambitious “leader”. To us Mandela’s name in conjunction with that of his own is really comparing chalk with cheese.The problem in RSA and the world today is the scarcity of honest and competent leadership. Only Obama stands out!
Indeed if the ANC leadership does not change the direction of the ship now, it is destined to sink. There are no more intellectual debates in the organisation, just jostling for positions. There’s no more fights for just causes, only people who act act large just because. The ANC’s worst enemy is itself. This is sad because the promises that its leaders made in 1994 now seem like a pie in the sky. There is no vision. This is simply because of one silly characteristic…the tendency to forget. The leaders have forgotten what it took to get to where we are. These people need to do some serious reflection on who they are in the ANC in South Africa in the world. If they fail to come up with clear answers then there is no way they’ll be able to articulate a clear vision for South Africa and the wagon that has carried the struggle for racial and gender parity, the regaining of the black person’s dignity…the struggle for a better life for all… will have had its wheels come off and never to be recovered.
This is one of the best political assessments of Zuma I’ve ever seen from an established journalist. Felicitations, Mr. Saunderson-Meyer.
But, oh, one problem. When hegemonic political parties lose power, the most likely consequence is not democracy but dictatorship. It is hard to see any democratic tendencies in parties outside the ANC; the most conspicuous tendency is adoration for rich people and distaste for poor people, even if one disregards the strong licks of racism across the spectrum. The collapse of the ANC is not a nice prospect. And the Butcher of Kabul is not going to help us.
Good post. Ideologically speaking both Cosatu and the SACP are sticking to their inherent default ideological positions regarding the media.
What is interesting about broad revolutionary political movements like the ANC, is that it allows for an alliance across ideological lines – whilst there is a clear enemy.
Increasingly as it is becoming difficult for the ANC to find a common enemy (whites, media, capitalism, DA, big business etc) or common strategy (NDR vision not shared by everyone) it finds that it is more difficult to contain the differences (ideological, policy and material) within the alliance.
At the moment the SACP and COSATU value a broken/dysfunctional alliance more than no alliance. The mostly still speak the revolutionary/NDR language but do differ on key points.
Compare this with Zimbabwe. When ZANU-PF consistently started losing support from the trade unions, ngo’s, academia, blue collar workers and urban middle classes it resorted to the land issue and created a new common enemy – MDC, originally more specifically white farmers, in cahoots with their foreign UK backers implementing regime change.
The MDC came to prominence when these disenfranchised interest groups left the ZANU-PF camp and formed a broad alliance over specific issues that affected them – culminating into the referendum which led to the establishment of the MDC as a serious front against ZANU-PF.
So can the ANC find a common enemy to keep the alliance intact? Are the differences big and important enough for the SACP/Cosatu to split?
(cont)
Is there a common denominator for opposition groups to rally around?
I think a lot of these elements are still missing or not in place.
The ANC will find that it is impossible to drive something like a NDR without serious conflict within the alliance. Wherever revolutions have been successful, it has been a short lived alliance or a vanguard movement built and sustained through totalitarian control.
Democratic SA was a negotiated settlement. The revolutionary alliance was short lived and never “won”. The exile movement functioned through tight control but the UDM was more like a loose alliance.
It is being sustained now through rhetoric and piecemeal concessions, but the reality is that the goals & policy objectives are very different.
Partners like Cosatu were never subjected to the strict Leninist discipline of the ANC/SACP in exile.
The South African political landscape is still largely liberal and plural in outlook. We have relative political freedom although there is serious government interference in many sphere of society.
But, this relative freedom leads to diverse and dynamic policy positions, interests and actors – difficult to control.
Whilst this remains the case, it is difficult to push something like the NDR. Therefore, if people within the ANC is really serious about it, they have to clamp down on media freedom, business, etc in order to establish totalitarian control.
The alternative is to form an alliance between business and the political elite (corporatism/crony capitalism) either voluntary (crony capitalism/corruption) or through legislation (BEE).
DJ, have you asked the Americans what they think of Obama lately? Many think he stands out enough to make them very trigger happy.
But then, this discussion was never about him. Much as I honour Mandela, he really was (as statesman) a soul lost in this modern world, not quite in touch with reality but very in touch with his own touchy feeliness; a Mother Theresa in drag.
The best about Sexwale is that he is less likely to sideline other races, having three within his immediate family. I like him, but am not sure he has the grit good leadership of our rabble demands, which basically relies on dollar-value. I only hope Zuma the hasbeen is put out to pasture as should happen. An aquaintance said: ‘You can’t blame the strikers. They asked for toilets, not stadiums and even the toilets in the stadiums stand locked and inaccessible.’ As a dyed-in-the-wool Zulu from up north, his next comment was the most telling I’ve heard: ‘I only worry for my three-year-old daughter. What future is there for her in this country?’
What an irreponsible writing William based on shallow level of thinking. The JZ’s adminstartion,like others has challenges there and there,but that can not translate into an outright chaos as you suggest.
It is interesting how fellow bloggers are convinced by this ill informed piece of writing that the alliance is in tatters. Ideological differences are bound to exist in the alliance,given the nature of the alliance we are talking here. It is because of the culture of debate the ANC embraces that we would have its friend/s in alliance sometimes perhaps differing on a view in a given time,something is encouraged.
Why you speculate on JZ’s family affairs when you suspect that he is always away to avoid stress emanating supposedly from the conflict at home,just takes us back to a discussion about MAT to deal with people like you.
@melford chuene,
Where exactly is the alliance in “the Alliance”. There are rampant capitalists and outdated communists and socialists. There is nothing to hold such an “alliance” together now that the common enemy is no more. The ideological viewpoints of the various members differs too much, and in many instances is diametrically opposed. What is in common between communists and capitalists or nationalists. The “Tripartite Alliance” is an ideological farce. They cling together because they are afraid of losing their largesse and power if they were to go their different ways. It’s all about the money and the power to accumulate more money.
“Those that walk in the centre of the road are in danger of being knocked down from both sides.”
Without even naming him, we would have known to whom you were referring: ‘Poor leadership, hesitancy,ambivalence,equivocator,dysfunctional ..’- your excellent characterization and commentary reinforced by Peter Joffe, Mpho, The Creator and MoBear, amongst others.
Yet, Zuma does as Zuma is. It was to be expected.
It is the ANC itself who is to blame for the country’s leadership debacle.
In return for his so-called drawcard-pull of the populist vote, they even gave Zuma the title of president. They traded promises to the poor in exchange for votes.
Those votes gave ANC leaders and friends licence for self-enrichment. It enabled them to gorge their greed by milking as much as they could, and by whatever means, from the country’s coffers. Government corruption, tenders, bribes, are the order of the day.
In many ways, like his shower-cap, Zuma wears the crown that befits ANC leadership. They continue to pull the wool over the eyes of the poor ‘loyal’ ANC ever-hopefuls, with fake promisory-notes, while they laugh (like Zuma and his ever-growing, extended, expensive family) at our expense, all the way to the bank.