Pete’s blog

To continue last week’s email with some more thoughts – in particular about Zuma and Polokwane.

First off, Zuma is almost certain to be the next ANC president, barring some bizarre last minute event. It was pretty much a done deal once Mbeki gave his full support to Zuma, I mean why else would Mbeki run for ANC president if he wasn’t trying to support Zuma? The SA press has tried to split everyone into two camps – the pro-Mbeki’s and the pro-Zuma’s. I think that this misses the point, there are actually 4 groups of people – the pro-Mbeki’s, the pro-Zuma’s, the anyone-but-Mbeki’s and the anyone-but-Zuma’s. The anyone-but-Mbeki camp is actually quite large – he has been president for 8 years and I think a lot of people are tired of him and want some change. By running again for president, Mbeki has forced all the anyone-but-Mbeki’s to support Zuma. Mbeki should have stood aside and allowed the other potential candidates to take his place – this would have allowed an alternative to Zuma and Mbeki’s potential successor to come to the fore.

At least we have less than a week for most of the pain and speculation to end – the Polokwane conference is this weekend. There are some important things to note about Polokwane, in particular it is not merely to vote for the ANC president, it is to elect the entire leadership of the ANC – secretary general, treasurer, etc. The two most important positions are of course president and deputy president. Deputy president is particularly interesting because that person could be the next president of the country, if Zuma is president and he is subsequently found guilty of corruption. Following on from last week, one of the most important reasons why the damage a president can do is limited is shown in this conference. The elected ANC leadership is very unlikely to be entirely pro-Zuma or pro-Mbeki, it should end up as a mixture, in theory representative of the general followings within the ANC. A president of the ANC has very little ability to change this leadership on his own – Mbeki was able to fire Zuma as deputy president of the country, but not as deputy president of the ANC. So the president of the country can hire and fire his cabinet as he chooses – but he would be unable to change the party leadership. Considering the ANC leadership will be a Zuma/Mbeki mixture and since the party comes first, this should severely limit any wild behaviour that goes against the policies of the ANC. Note that the ANC can choose to change its president at any time, essentially calling for early government elections or by a majority vote of no confidence.

The other important thing to note about Polokwane is that the election is by SECRET ballot! I’m sure a lot of people are supporting Zuma in public, but having their doubts in private – especially considering the vigour with which the ANC Youth League and COSATU have been supporting Zuma. Going against Zuma in public could be political suicide (apparently some Youth League member were suspended today for openly supporting Mbeki), a secret ballot is another matter.

I’m interested to see if the elder party members get up to anything at Polokwane. It is entirely possible that the grey-beards might broker some sort of comprise in the interests of party unity… Zuma’s potential trial and the potentially acrimonious Mbeki country president/Zuma ANC president scenario could be factors that stir these guys into action. When the grey-beards speak, people tend to listen. The likely outcome of this would be a ‘caretaker’ president – not Mbeki and not Zuma, but the promise that if Zuma is cleared of charges he will be country president.

Lastly, what do I think a Zuma presidency would be like? Zuma has been doing an unbelievably good job at campaigning – he has been meeting all the right people and saying all the right things. This is a big concern, because you can’t say ALL the right things to ALL the right people, ie. you can’t make everyone happy. Zuma is the epitome of demagoguery (OED: demagogue 1) a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument / 2) (in ancient Greece and Rome) an orator who espoused the cause of the common people.) This means that there are two paths he can follow – surrounding himself by yes men and following quick fix policies or surrounding himself with very clever people that make him look good by implementing good policies. If you have a look at Zuma’s advisors he is currently following the second path, but until you’ve given them power, you don’t know what a person will really do. Zuma will definitely follow a very pro-poor agenda – education, land reform, social services, etc. It could be a good thing, considering the large number of discontent poor people in the country, and considering he has a very strong financial base to leverage. Expect a larger government deficit. I’m still slightly concerned about how Zuma will do with regards to foreign policy. He has no formal schooling and his exploits have shown him to be somewhat naive – the sophisticated politicians from overseas could eat him alive. That said he has played some major negotiation and mediation roles in his career, including SA’s transition, KwaZulu-Natal peace mediation, and Rwanda/Burundi peace talks. And he has plenty of first-hand experience of due-process, and dodging legal questions

Well, that’s all I have to say about this for the moment. Next week we should at least have a bit more clarity on what to expect in SA for the next 5 years… Till then.