South Africa: Time to look beyond Zuma

Last week, President Jacob Zuma received a stinging rebuke from the Constitutional Court – that he breached the constitution by refusing to abide by the verdict of the country’s anti-corruption agency that he refunds the government money – about $23 million – he used to upgrade his rural home.  Just upon coming to power in 2009, President Zuma spent huge taxpayer’s money in upgrading his rural home in what is now known as the Nkandla scandal citing security concerns. The Public Protector (Anti-Corruption agency), in its report, stated that “the president tacitly accepted the implementation of all measures at his residence and has unduly benefited from the enormous capital investment in the non-security installations at his private residence”. The Ombudsman then asked him to repay some of the costs. However, President Zuma ignored the Ombudsman and, using his executive powers and control over the African National Congress (ANC), frustrated the process of holding him to account. Piqued by such display of executive recklessness, the Ultra-leftist Economic Freedom Fighters Party of Julius Malema took him to the Constitutional Court to force his compliance.

Even before Zuma ascended the presidency, he has often been associated with corruption, cronyism and scandals. Sadly, the scandals have deepened since his coming to power.  Recently, there were reports that the Guptas – a powerful business family of Indians with close affinity to Zuma – had offered to arrange cabinet positions for politicians. Last year, Zuma summarily replaced a respected finance minister with a political hack and only backtracked after a national outcry and possible investor backlash. A government official later revealed that the Guptas offered him the finance minister’s post.

It is a big shame that the ANC – the party of the venerable Nelson Mandela and the foremost and longstanding political party in the entire of Africa – has allowed its moral and political authority to be so badly eroded in so short a time. The party, which has dominated South African politics since the end of apartheid rule in 1994, is now seen as the main enabler of corruption and is turning the country into a “mafia state”. Despite all these, the ANC executive committee, stacked with Zuma’s lackeys, has continued to express full confidence in Zuma and is likely to frustrate the impeachment moves initiated by the opposition parties.

In a way, this speaks to the tendency and proclivity of African political elite to destroy their countries and societies in the process of seeking to entrench themselves and amass wealth at the expense of the society.  South Africa in 1994, on the eve of the first democratic elections, was by all standards, a fully capable and functional state with a thriving economy and strong industrial base. Noted that the economic power was concentrated in the hands of the White minority, the settlement reached – that the ANC will not seek to forcefully dismantle and appropriate the property of the Whites but will use the states’ resources to educate and consequently develop and integrate the majority black society – if consistently pursued and followed would have ensured the emancipation of black South Africans. But hardly had the ANC captured power than it began, under the guise of black empowerment, to enrich its members and party apparatchik while neglecting the overarching goal of black education and emancipation. Today, the South African economy is in shambles. Unemployment is at its highest and the majority blacks, ravaged by poverty and want, are wondering what they actually achieved in 1994! Is it surprising therefore that xenophobia and crimes are rife in the country?

Although, despite the obvious fact that the Constitutional Court’s ruling that Zuma “failed to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution as the supreme law of the land” is an impeachable offence, the move initiated by the opposition parties is not likely to succeed.  However, the ANC must know that by supporting and keeping Zuma, it is fast losing its firm grip on the South African society. It is clear that ordinary South Africans are fed up with the madness going on now and are likely to register their displeasures in subsequent elections. It will be sad if, in the near future, the ANC suffers the same fate as most ruling and corrupt parties in Africa.

Interestingly, instead of resigning, the wily and crafty Zuma has chosen to apologise and remain firmly in his position. Since it is inconceivable for African leaders to ever contemplate resigning honourably even where their rule has become untenable, it behoves on his party, no matter how difficult, to help him to leave the scene so that the task of rebuilding the battered economy and public trust can begin under a new leadership.