The lessons of history are instructive. Curiously, African leaders often ignore them. Thus, they meet their waterloo, due to avoidable mistakes. Had former President Jacob Zuma learnt useful lessons from the fall of his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, perhaps, the story would have been different today.
African leaders are never sensitive to the wind of change. They seldom vacate the stage when the ovation is loudest. Their pre-eminent positions, the power they wield, the control they exercise and the resources at their disposal often draw wools on their eyes. On the corridor of power, they are blind to reality. The bane of leadership in the dark continent is the personalisation of power.
That Zuma fell from his Olympian height is ironic. Although he had a disadvantage of superlative western education, he was schooled in the culture, struggles and aspirations of his people. He could also be described as one of the heroes of the apartheid struggle. His long political career is inter-twined with the protracted battle against colonial domination, which earned him imprisonment for five years along with his leader, the late former President Nelson Mandela.
Yet, historians now berate him for a shortfall in historic perception. While he succeeded in getting Mbeki out of the way, following intra-party collaboration with other esteemed party leaders, he could not avert the same doom nine years after.
Full of bravado, he tested the will of the party by bragging that he was not yet done with the exalted office. But, sensing the humiliation of a looming vote-of-no-confidence from the parliament, he embraced the reality of an end.
Zuma was a household name as a prominent member of the militant wing of the time-tested African National Congress (ANC). He was a great risk-taker. The wing was a thorn in the flesh of the white dictators who promoted the policy of segregation in South Africa. He was loyal to the cause of liberation. He was committed to the struggle for the abolition of racism. The mark of future leadership was on him as a lieutenant of post-apartheid presidents and a key figure in the ruling party. Once upon a time, he was a man of the people.
In South African’s ANC, the president wields a dual authority as leader of government and party secretary. The party secretary, more or less, is the leader of the party, held in esteem by the rank and file. The fall of a president may be preceded by his loss of the critical position of the party secretary. It was the fate that befell Mbeki, frontline anti-apartheid fighter, Western-trained economist, seasoned administrator and vice president under the indisputable moral and political authority of the legendary Mandela.
Mbeki saw the handwriting on the wall. Yet, he ignored it. He was canvassing some positions; some sorts of reforms; which the party criticised. He came under the hammer for alleged misuse of power and arrogance. Gradually, he was perceived to be alienating himself from his party colleagues, especially veterans who shared the physical, pseudo-military and intellectual battle field with him in the long period of anxiety and tension. It was evident that Mbeki will have to bow out before his term expired. When a high court judge accused him and some senior justice officials of being part of an illegal conspiracy to charge Zuma with corruption for political reasons, his days were numbered in office.
Up came Zuma, a veteran union leader whose popularity had soared as the new conscience of the party. He successfully followed the populist path, drawing attention to himself as the hope after the imminent collapse of the Mbeki leadership.
Since he is not so educated, the amiable polygamist and man of native intelligence became the focus because he was at home with the people. The first weapon acquired by Zuma was the position of the party secretary. That was after succeeding Oliver Thambo as the deputy party leader. While the party believed Zuma was in line of succession after Mbeki, some alleged that Mbeki was trying to throw obstacles on the path of his likely successor to liquidate him. A personality crisis ensued between the leader of government and the leader of the party.
However, there was an interlude. The crisis boxed the country into a transitional arrangement, with Kgalema Motlanthe serving as transition president in 2008. The following year, Zuma fulfilled his dream of leading the country.
Following his assumption of office, he forgot the past. The economy was entrusted into the hand of a bad manager. Despite its potential, South Africa has had to contend with poverty in recent times, making its citizens to develop the erroneous belief that the gloomy economic picture was the handwork of foreigners. Zuma continued in the opulence of his exalted office, refusing to embrace critical economic reforms to reposition the country.
Insensitive to party dictates, Zuma isolated himself from his colleagues. Even, at a time the epidemic was raging, the former president trivialised the burning HIV/AIDS issue, saying that bathing after intercourse with a patient was more efficacious than drugs imported from the West. But, the greatest sin of Zuma is his alleged financial corruption. The allegation may still have to be proved in the court.
Indeed, 75-year-old Zuma has been living on a borrowed time since last year when the deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, also a union leader, was elected as the leader of the 106-year-old ACN in December last year. He narrowly defeated Zuma’s ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. The hope of a happy retirement for Zuma is doubtful. The next challenge for him is to concentrate on defending himself in the court of law or court of public opinion that he was not a promoter of graft. He may forfeit the chance of earning the type of respect accorded to Mandela and other giants of history in South Africa.
The implication of Zuma’s inglorious exit is that post-apartheid South Africa has been locked in a crisis of good governance, transparency and leadership. The potentially great country has refused to build successfully on the foundation and sacrificial ethos of Mandela, the first president who refused re-election.