Tag: Zuma

The party must move against the president if it wants to continue to be relevant in SA’s history

Nobody needed to be told that South Africa would get to the destination it is today, with a man like Jacob Zuma in power. But it can only get worse, for as long as Zuma continues to occupy that office of president of a country that is the black man’s hope. Nigeria that used to be the beacon of hope lost that title many years before. But I do not think it lies in our mouth as Nigerians to ask the question of how Zuma could be sitting pretty on a seat that Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela left about 17 years ago because the average South African too (while appreciating the fact that this is true) would also be wondering how many of Nigeria’s successive leaders are better than their current president. So, how did they too get to the top of political positions in the country, given the talents that abound here, many of them international stars?

With the African national Congress’ (ANC) 53.9 percent of the aggregate national poll in the August 3, 2016 municipal elections, down from 61 percent in 2011, this is the first time since 1994 when apartheid ended in that country that the ANC would score less than 60 percent of such votes. Even in Pretoria, the ANC was defeated by the opposition Democratic alliance (DA). Although the ANC still commands huge support across the country, the fact is; that support is waning. It can no longer take it for granted that the black majority will blindly follow it. Take for instance the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality; it was won by the DA, which has a rich history of anti-apartheid struggle. Indeed, its new DA mayor is Athol Trollip, who is white. It is that bad.

One can only imagine what would have been going on in the mind of the average South African as they skipped the symbol of the ANC that they had known for years to affix their thumbprint on that of the alternative DA. I could imagine the tears that would well up in their eyes because it is indeed a painful experience. But such experience must come if they are ever to regain their lost glory before it is too late; that is if it is not too late already.

The truth is; the ANC has been more than arrogant; its officials largely corrupt, and what has been happening, particularly in the Zuma years, was a gradual reversal of every good thing the country used to stand for. Zuma himself is corruption personified. We are yet to know what the ANC would do to Zuma who remains a local champion among his Zulu kith and kin, who form a quarter of the country’s population, despite the multiple scandals hanging on his neck. He once had about 783 corruption charges that South Africa’s High Court had ruled far back as May that the prosecutor should reinstate against him, having been dropped a few years ago. He was tried for rape in 2006, even though he was freed on the grounds that the act was consensual. Moreover, revelations that President Zuma upgraded his private home with $20m of public money caused an outcry and the Constitutional Court recently instructed Mr Zuma to reimburse the state $507,000.

The developments in South Africa are also particularly distressing because of the political hiccups that are likely to follow. The country would now be forced to go into coalitions since hardly is there any single political party that can form a government on its own, even at the municipal level. The ideological and personal differences that exist among the political parties will make these highly fragile and will likely require repeated re-negotiation over budgets and other issues.

But the election still reflects something of note for us, especially Nigerians. There seems a consensus by the generality of South Africans that there was the need for change in voting pattern. That the ANC has not fared well was acknowledged by majority of the people who therefore decided to vote for change because what is not good is just not good; there can be no other name for it; irrespective of the creed or colour of those behind it. Things were so bad that not even the ANC could contest the outcome of the polls because the party must have seen it coming. Within South Africa and even beyond, many people had been wondering how South Africa begot the presidency of Zuma. If the ANC could lose elections in South Africa, then any political party can be defeated in Nigeria because there is no political party that Nigerians are as sentimentally attached to as the South Africans were to the ANC. Since the death of the Second Republic, we are yet to see any such party.

An online commentator summed the South African tragedy all up thus: It’s not even a wake- up call … its utter stupidity to continue to support this crooked self-serving scum under the guise that you are supporting the party and not the man … Even bloggers here use same excuse … The party should always be bigger than one man … Now a white monopoly party has taken votes from the ANC … It will be difficult to regain these votes … Zuma is a sell-out … sold this country to the Guptas and has sold the ANC to the DA.”

This is the tragedy of the South African municipal elections. Perhaps the other surprise is that, since within the ANC no president is untouchable, why has the party not moved against Zuma despite the bags of woes trailing him. After all, the same party removed Thabo Mbeki from party leadership and the presidency. Yet, Mbeki was a much more urbane president as against Zuma, a parochial bigot, who was a bitter rival to Mbeki, and for whose sake the party removed Mbeki to pave the way for his (Zuma’s) presidency.

Mandela must be moved to tears in his grave that this is what they have turned South Africa, a country over which himself and others toiled and were incarcerated for decades, to rebuild, less than three years after his death. Mandela died December 5, 2013. But that has always been the Black man’s curse: leadership. When it seems an African country is about getting it; something happens that drags the hands of the clock back several years. Only a few countries on the continent have succeeded in breaking what seems like a generational curse. Even, given that these countries are still evolving, it is too early to say categorically that any African country has crossed this Rubicon.