For several weeks running now, President Jacob Zuma of South Africa has been in the eye of the storm. And sadly too, a lot of the troubles have been self-inflicted. He chose the wrong business partners, takes on the wrong fights and has also failed to learn from his earlier mistakes.
Indeed, were it not that the lives of millions of South Africans are being affected by his poor judgements and governance mishaps, The New Diplomat would have said ‘let him be left alone to stew in his own juice.’ But the issues are far too critical. The South African economy is still not in the best of health, its once fairly remarkable educational infrastructure is slowly going down the drain and the numbers of the unemployed as well as the poor in the country is rising. Indeed, under Zuma, this is clearly not the best times to be a South African.
Even more jarring is the fact that like many other big-man leaders in Africa, Zuma had, upon coming to power, chosen to conveniently forget where he was coming from. Here is a man who had been pardoned by the ruling African National Congress,ANC, establishment after his disastrous outing as Deputy President and made leader of the party and of government. Rather than repay the party with a humble and renewed commitment to good governance, he has rather preferred to engage in wheeling and dealing, amassing luxury palaces everywhere and promoting cronies far beyond their competence.
In addition, he has also waged a most frenetic battle to rewrite and recast the fortunes of a great nation in his own very uncomplimentary image and likeness. In defiance of all known elements of good judgement for example, he has, rather than collaborate with the ‘market-appointed Finance Minister,’ Pravin Gordon, preferred to fight him at every turn, and undermine his best efforts to pick up the pieces of an economy that Zuma and his cronies had so heavily bastardised.
Indeed, for one who rode into power on the crest of populism, the present travails of South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma are indeed most galling.
But then, we must salute the different layers of South African society that have since risen to the charge to ensure that the grand promise of a new and prosperous South African democracy which Nelson Mandela’s emergence on the scene as first post-apartheid leader of the nation had evinced is not compromised. Equally notable is the work of institutional actors like the Office of the Public Protector, the opposition political parties, labour unions, students, the business community and the media.
Will Zuma survive the present imbroglio? That is not our call to make. It is a matter which the South African people, through their institutions would have to decide on. What is however clear is that the president has, through his actions and inactions, cost both his family, friends, political party and indeed the nation a lot. And while on a political score, he may still be able to muster enough votes to keep riding the tiger, it is indeed our considered option that the best interests of South Africa and indeed all of Africa would be better served by President Zuma commencing forthwith the process of disengaging himself from the governance process within the country and indeed the leadership of the ANC. This, in our view, is what Nelson Mandela would have counselled even as his foundation did indeed stop short of saying last week. But then, we restate that the call is indeed for South Africans to make.
Overall then, the Zuma decline is a pointer to all African leaders in all the jurisdictions within the continent where they hold sway: You only take the people and the nation you have been privileged to govern for granted at your own peril.
