The election of Jacob Zuma, as
President of the ANC in 2007 at its 53rd Conference, remains one of
the most openly contested electoral process the ANC has experienced since its
banning. His recall as Deputy President of the country, and at a time when the
ANC was facing an internal rebellion against a ‘supposedly centrist’ Thabo
Mbeki, created an opportunity sieve for Zuma to earnestly start his ‘campaign’
to be the next President of the ANC and by extension the Republic of South
Africa. At the time Zuma was recalled he was the deputy president of the ANC
and possessing all rights to organise and address any meeting of the ANC; he thus
had free reign over structures of the ANC and could thus influence future
elective conferences at all levels of the organisation. It is in the domain of
this influence that Zuma amassed unfettered political power, a resource he
consolidated from his first day as President of the country.
In the office of the deputy
president of the country, Zuma was presiding over a ‘powerless’ office as per
design of the then centre of government. Executive Authority only resided in
the office of the deputy president ‘as an when the president assigns it from
time to time’ or when the president is absent, and/or is unable to perform his/her
duties. In fact, whomever has executive authority over National Treasury is ,
and as a result of the economic policy trajectory adopted as well as chapter 13
constitutional injunctions entrenched, is more prime as a minister than the
deputy president. Zuma could under these circumstances only wield power outside
structures of government and only through the Deputy President status within
the ANC where he presided over the ‘critical’ deployment committee. From the
platform of the deployment committee Zuma could influence whomever occupied the
strategic positions in the bureaucracy; given his in-ANC background the
security cluster would thus be under his firm control.
Deployed cadres were thus
‘structurally’ predisposed to Zuma’s patronage and thus traded their loyalty
commensurate with their career ambitions. Known loyalists who displayed their
loyalty at critical moments towards the ‘Zuma Tsunami inspired’ Polokwane
conference, became pillars of the ‘final push strategy’ that saw the ‘defeat’
of Mbeki in the ANC presidential contest of 2007 and his ultimate recall in 2008
as President of the country. As a consequence of the in-ANC electoral victory
of Zuma, South Africa’s bureaucracy, and out of design, became laced with a
‘new breed of loyalty’ to leadership which became vulnerable to ‘additional
breeds’ of loyalty farming centres; later defined as ‘state capturers’. The ‘new
loyalty tradition’ that became ‘instructional’ to how the ANC presidency
campaign was funded, redefined, and in systemic terms, how ANC branches would relate to elective
conferences at all levels.
The consequent ‘capture’ of ANC
branches in terms of the ‘new loyalty tradition’, ‘money’ and similar resources
became the order of the day. This was despite warnings presented by the
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma report on the
Tshwane Region’s elections. The report pronounced on ‘branch purchasing’, a
phenomena also aptly named ‘members of members’ which is in essence a condition
where voting delegates are ‘bought’ to influence electoral outcomes in favour
of those that could afford the bid for votes price. In the report Dlamini-Zuma
further warned on the dangers of ‘slates’ as a precursor to ‘faction-driven-politics’
that will in the long run devour the in-ANC member cohesion.. The non-action on
the report by the then NEC created a definite impression that the capture-through-money’
of delegates as an election winning strategy was acceptable ‘to win elective
conferences’. This practise grew to become the single most important activity
at electoral conferences in the liberation movement’s power exchange complex; its
unfortunate adjunk was institutionalised corruption.
Compounding this challenge, and
in relation to why Zuma can’t just go, are the ‘ín-the trenches’ loyalties’
that Zuma could still recall from ‘units’ of the ANC-in-Exile ‘underground’ and
‘intelligence’ operatives including, if Stephen Ellis’s treatise on the exile
mission is anything to go by, moles from within the former apartheid state’s
intelligence functionaries that can still manipulate ‘processes’ of state power
contestation. In the run up to the Polokwane conference a near military
precision campaign with strategic information leakages as well as in-ANC
structures territory annexation that culminated in the final swing of the ANCWL
support for Zuma, despite a compromising rape case (with a not guilty verdict)
could only signal a high level strategy to take over the ANC as a sure conduit
to state power.
The domino resignation of high
ranking officers in the security cluster further signalled the creation of a
vacuum in the intelligence gathering process for political incumbents. The
out-of-service status of these officers gave them a free range in how they
could, if such choices were made, support the ‘Zuma-for-ANC President’
campaign. At Polokwane, President Mbeki was only left with former Commissioner
Jacky Selebi as the high ranking officer that started his presidential term
with him , this was despite the fact that the crime intelligence complex
included General Mdluli whose later loyalty may have displayed then reporting
hierarchies. The campaign to dismember the Scorpions as well as putting into
disarray the National Prosecuting Authority as well as procuring a
delegitimization process for the in-SARS ‘now called rogue unit’ further
indicates the tentacular reach of the then campaign; notwithstanding the
absence of evidence of Zuma’s direct and personal involvement in such
orchestrations.
Whilst the above are directly
related to the process that preceded the ascendance to power by Jacob Zuma,
there sre further structural problems to the removal of an ANC president who is
also a president of the country. The only time a ANC deployed president of the
country can be easily recalled by the ANC is when he is not the president of
the ANC. In instances where s/he is ANC president his recall would create a two
centres of power condition thus rendering one of the two president moribund
whilst occupying a position of defined power. The requirement that an ANC
president can only be recalled as ANC president by a consent of at least 5 of
the provinces procures for a national consultative process that starts with
regional general councils, then provincial general councils , and ultimately a
national general council; a process that would assume a character similar to US-type
primaries which is alien to ANCness, save for the Zuma process.
The recent campaign to have Zuma
removed as President of the country and that of the ANC is thus wrought with
similarities to the then strategies to remove Mbeki. The striking difference is
that protagonists are operating outside ANC structures. The strategy as it
unfolds seem to be based on ‘delegitimizing’ the person of Jacob Zuma whilst
trying to salvage the ANC as an institution. The strategy also seem to be
driven by the historical ANC constituency akin to its founding type. The
galvanising of this constituency, mainly as a urban and ‘enlightened person’s’
project, assumes a particular social structure in South Africa, particularly
ANC base. The academic-media-complex that has deployed itself as a conduit to
have the strategic outcomes of this plan realised has thus far succeeded in
concentrating the effort firmly into constituencies targeted by its ‘plotters’.
The complex seems to have ignored the literacy emotion of South Africa and its
attitude towards the learned in society.
The difficulty of removing Zuma is further compounded by the geopolitical impact of its outcomes to neighbouring regimes as well as the changing nature of power constellations in the global scheme of things. The changing architecture of the global financial system, especially the creation of the BRICS bank, the mooted alternative rating agencies and card transaction switching facilities as well as the review of international banking codes and treaties, emerge as one of the strategic considerations fuelling the outcome of a ‘Zuma-less’ South Africa. The embrace of BRICS influence on Africa’s infrastructural development and credit guarantee facilities by the AU under the leadership of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the would be candidate at the 54th ANC Conference, appears to be in the mix of strategic considerations by ‘resources suppliers’ to the #Zumamustfall onslaught.
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