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The saga of Jacob Zuma is one that will remain in the history of South Africa for a long, long time. I'm tempted to predict his downfall, but South African politics prove to be unpredictable. Still, Zuma as a president might be a good thing. The man is dishonest enough to cause some real damage. Maybe Zuma will become South Africa's first Nixon. Regardless, his trials and tribulations – first fraud, then rape (acquitted) – has already earned him a whole chapter in South Africa's post-struggle history. To understand why and perhaps to get a better idea around the whole fiasco of Zuma and the succession issue, you need a bit of background. Currently the ANC, South Africa's ruling party and the liberator of of the people, is becoming more and more embroiled in corruption scandals. It would appear that a lot of politicians took advantage of the good feeling and welfare that emerged from the liberation of South Africa's people by lining their own pockets. Those who used to be communist and socialist comrades quickly became capitalist fat cats.
In this environment, big corruption was bound to happen – and it did. In the late Nineties South Africa's government signed a multi-billion dollar arms deal; one that would soon be covered in all kinds of dirt, which started with the question to why South Africa needed to spend that much on arms. It's not that SA didn't need more ships to protect its coastlines, but as time progressed it became clear the monetary value of the deal had more to do with kickbacks than practicality and need. The first problems were the obvious ones – irregularities with the tender processes and very irate businesses who lost bids. But there are always sour loses, yet in the arms deal a lot of the losers lost inexplicably and a lot of the deals made just didn't make sense.
This started a very, very slow witch-hunt, mainly because the majority of the corruptors are ANC high-ups. The party has through this and other scandals earned a well-deserved reputation of being denialist and very protective over its senior members. A good example is the first major prosecution from the arms deal – Tony Yengeni, the ANC's former chief whip, was sentenced to 6 years in prison for corruption a few months ago, but due to an obscure correctional services act passed in 2003, he'll only serve a tenth of his sentence. In fact, he was photographed this past weekend on parole, sipping drinks at his home with politicians and other influential friends. Crime, basically, pays very well if you are an ANC politician.
Jacob Zuma, though, is the biggest fish. While Yengeni was found guilty for accepting a discounted luxury 4x4 from one of the companies vying for the arms deal, Zuma's involvements seem to be much more. At the least, there are two factors influencing his importance in the matter. Firstly he was the Deputy President of the country and secondly he could be tied to Schabir Shaik, the businessman recently sentenced to 15 years for corruption. Between these two elements he quickly became an Achilles Heel for the ANC, a party notorious for crating lagers around its members.
The Shaik verdict forced President Mbeki to fire Zuma as deputy, but he does retain his position of ANC deputy president. This technically means that when Mbeki retires, Zuma would be up next for ANC president and thus president of South Africa when the ANC wins the 2009 elections. But for some reason Zuma, apart from dipping his fingers in the cash pot, also invited the ire of the ANC top brass and he was slowly being ostracized from what has become known as the ANC right. At the same time he quickly found support from COSATU, the largest trade union in the country, and the ANC Youth League. COSATU is a leftist organisation by nature, while the Youth League are more anxious to rattle up the ANC old-schoolers. Suddenly Zuma, who doesn't appear to be left-leaning in his convictions and policies, became a left-wing candidate. But it got him strong, vocal allies. Thing only got more out of proportion when a family friend accused Zuma of rape. The charge turned out to be nonsense and mainly displayed Zuma's capacity for bad judgement, but it caused a media frenzy, not to mention fueled the cries of Zuma supporters that he is being persecuted in an ANC conspiracy. There's truth in that – if anything, Zuma is being left out high and dry by colleagues that are as guilty as he is, if not more. That was pretty obvious when, in budgeting the windfall tax, finance minister Trevor Manuel ushered R10 million to Zuma's fraud defence fund after months of the government avoiding the issue. The issue has even dragged the courts into it and the judiciary has started to come under fire for this or that. Judge Hillary Squires, who found Zuma's prima facie (pun intended) accomplice Shaik guilty of fraud, was at first demonized by Zuma supporters. Now he's being applauded for revealing that the judges in the Shaik appeal misquoted him in their judgement.
Last week Shaik lost his appeal, when a mixed-race bench of five judges reviewing his appeal unanimously voted him guilty on all counts. Alas, the judgement quoted a line in the original Shaik trail judgement, saying the relationship between Shaik and Zuma was generally corrupt. The problem? Judge Squires never wrote that in his judgement – once the mistake was revealed (ironically by Squires himself in a letter to Business Day, not by the ANC, media or Zuma supporters who had the full ability to compare the judgements) COSATU bayed for blood, said the appeal was flawed and even demanded the judges' resignations. The prosecutor of the Shaik trail said it's a storm in a teacup and the mistake has no bearing over the overall verdict – a verdict which did indeed indicate a generally corrupt relationship. Still, the Zuma supporters are not happy, because the verdict reflects poorly on Zuma.
Fact is, Zuma won't ever be president because the ANC top brass won't allow it. But at the same time the ANC has to keep sandbagging against more and more arms deal irregularities and a ever-more apparent culture of corruption. The arms deal is just one – there are scandals about travel vouchers and oil – the 2010 World Cup is the ANC's last chance to regain confidence not from the world, but its own citizens, because it will sooner than later be a matter of the party's survival. The real issue here is that the ANC is coming apart, slowly, because it is busy rotting at the core. Ministers have aloof attitudes – in SA someone who holds a senior ministerial position can often complete their entire term without appearing for any real interviews. Some have accomplished this feat. If you want a politician's attention, accuse them of a major crime. Police commissioner Jackie Selebi never, ever holds press conferences except for good news, such as releasing delayed crime statistics – and when a former security agent released a dossier suggesting that the man is involved with the top of the SA crime world. In fact, he held it the very next day. The media itself is just plain rabid, because any attack on anything at this point is constructive or liberating, because at least it looks like someone is looking at the issues. The media simply cannot leave a scandal alone – that's not what the media does. Luckily it has a thick skin and are not phased by politicians' complaints.
Jacob Zuma's saga is going to be historic, partly because of the succession debate, but really because it's the first sign that all is not well at the ruling party. The ANC is starting to learn the lesson that you reap what you sow – and 'do as I say, not as I do' is not a sound philosophy unless you don't want to deal with the consequences. Well, let's hope it is.
