Zuma’s former wife faces stiff contest ahead

Capetown. While South African President Jacob Zuma is doing all in his power to ensure his pick — his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma — is the next leader of the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), and quite possibly of the country, the outcome of who will govern both is far from certain.

Despite Zuma’s efforts to ensure ‘more of the same’ under his ex-wife’s leadership, others are determined to end the scandal-rich corruption and patronage system imposed by the president and which has severely hampered SA’s ability to grow new jobs, enhance living standards for the poor and deliver on basic services.

Cyril Ramaphosa

As the ANC readies itself for a year-end elective conference at which the issue of its — and quite possibly South Africa’s — next leader will be decided, several figures have been touted as potential successors to Zuma.

Among these, the leading candidate, despite Zuma’s efforts, is the ANC’s wily deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa.

Until recently, local pundits had it that Ramaphosa’s bid to be elected as the ANC leader — and the likely next South African president — were more or less dead in the water.

Commentary was that he seemed to have no co-ordinated strategy after ‘throwing his hat’ into the elective ring late last year and had had no discernible on-the-ground campaign to speak of.

Campaign trail

On the other hand, the former African Union chairperson Dlamini-Zuma, having returned from an unremarkable stint at the AU, has hit the campaign trail running, showing up at all sorts of events as the main speaker and luminary despite currently holding no formal position in government.

Dlamini-Zuma’s campaign team looked organised and determined while Ramaphosa was characterised as ‘dithering’.

But he was not — he was biding his time.

There has long been a culture in the ruling party that it is ‘unseemly’ to be seen to be running for elected office in the party before the 11th hour, when an elective conference actually gets under way — and Zuma himself has been calling for that.

Zuma challenged

But that was just another Zuma ploy, it turns out, to have his hand-picked successor take the top job.

What Zuma wanted was for his ex-wife to get a huge head start and leave others, primarily Ramaphosa, in the dust.

But Ramaphosa has been ‘around the block’, as the saying goes, and has been quietly working back channels, even as loyalist Zuma lapdogs, specifically the ANC Women’s League and its once-feisty Youth League, have been touting Dlamini-Zuma as the heir-apparent. What Ramaphosa has all in hand was made clear in a recent speech (April 24) in Port Elizabeth, where he openly and fiercely challenged Zuma on his running of both the party and the country.

No charisma

Since then, Ramaphosa’s quiet work in the background has become apparent and his campaign is flying along.

Dlamini-Zuma’s public appearances, though numerous and heavily covered by pro-Zuma media, have, however, been lacklustre and thoroughly uninspiring — to the degree that, at a recent event, as the would-be next SA leader paused for applause, there was none forthcoming until the embarrassing silence was broken by her largely ineffective “cheering section”.

Indeed, Dlamini-Zuma has failed to ignite even mediocre spontaneous enthusiasm at the carefully selected events where she has spoken.

And she may have triggered another round of “State capture scandals” in the process, something which could easily end her bid to lead South Africa with a continuation of the same failed policies that Zuma’s baleful presidency has provided — but that is an as-yet-untold story for another day.

For his part, Ramaphosa has been naming names and calling Zuma out in an unprecedented fashion.

Sources close to the ‘top six’, the committee that runs the day-to-day affairs of the ANC, say that, away from the cameras, relations between Zuma and Ramaphosa would have to warm up considerably to be described as merely frosty.

Zuma’s high-handed attitude, which has seen him cited by the Constitutional Court — the highest in the land — as having failed in his constitutionally prescribed duties over multimillion-dollar upgrades to his family homestead in the country’s most populous province of KwaZulu-Natal, has been repeated with his recent midnight Cabinet reshuffle, in which loyalist but incompetent ministers were retained while some opposed to his desire to get his hands into the public coffers were ousted.

Gupta family

Just prior to her completion of her stint, the former Public Protector, whose job is to keep an eye on government officers up to and including the president, released a report on what is known here as “State capture”.

This refers to efforts, allegedly undertaken by a wealthy and powerful Indian immigrant family, the Guptas, to have Zuma and various other key government and parastatal senior executives doing their bidding, ostensibly to favour them in major deals.

Among these is a vastly expensive fleet of nuclear power plants, which even the government now admits South Africa does not need for at least the next 20 years. The public outcry over State capture is at such a fever pitch that it has already weakened Dlamini-Zuma’s hopes to succeed her ex-husband at the helm — even his endorsement is a problem for her, by association.

Zuma has been painted as not merely incompetent but an outright mendacious character of low ethical standards who is prepared to harm his country’s economy severely in order to keep his pals’ noses in the public money feeding trough.

Harsh as such characterisations have been, they are increasingly difficult to refute convincingly.

And Ramaphosa has used his recent public platform outings to drive that point home in no uncertain terms. He has called for a judicial commission of inquiry into allegations of State capture, essentially putting Zuma on notice. (NMG)