Remember the row in September 2004 when the then CEO of Anglo American, Tony Trahar, during a Financial Times interview, gave what he thought was a charitable answer to a question about political risk in South Africa?
Trahar said he thought political risk in South Africa had declined but, he said, “I won’t say it has completely disappeared.”
Thabo Mbeki, president at the time, quickly let fly at Trahar.
“The ANC and the government,” he growled in a newsletter, “would like to know to which political risk Trahar is referring.”
History improves over time, though. Now, 13 years later, we know Trahar was a little off the mark. Political risk wasn’t waning. It was there, simmering away.
And less than a year after asking Trahar what he was talking about, Mbeki had fired Jacob Zuma as deputy president.
Mbeki had been utterly wrong.
Trahar’s “political risk”, though dim at the time, is abundantly clear now. It’s a big ball of political fire hanging over us all.
The risk is Zuma; the all-powerful president of South Africa and an almost rogue president of the ANC is in the fight of his life (again) to control his succession as ANC leader when the party holds its elective congress in Johannesburg in December.
He has taken no prisoners and has taken a broom to his cabinet twice this year – bringing to 12 the number of cabinets he has presided over since his election in 2009.
We may not miss the former Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande much, but we sure do miss the former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
Zuma has had 18 charges of racketeering, corruption, fraud and money laundering against him reinstated and the economy is stuck in a deep hole dug mainly by himself.
And as it becomes clear to Zuma and everyone else that the president is not as totally in control of the coming party election as he would like, the tension in the country rises.
What will he do to his main challenger, his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, to stop him and to ensure that his candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, replaces him in the party job and, ultimately, as head of state?
He and Ramaphosa are openly at war and rumours swirl about plots to somehow get Ramaphosa out of the way before December.
Zuma could fire him as deputy president but that’s of the country, not the party. Ramaphosa could still contest and, in fact, firing him could strengthen him for December.
This week a WhatsApp message is doing the rounds, warning that Zuma will invent another intelligence report, as he did to fire Gordhan, and have Ramaphosa arrested and charged with treason as a Western “spy”.
That way Ramaphosa would not be able to stand at all.
To be honest, anyone could have floated this rumour, the Ramaphosa camp included. And Zuma denies the rumours. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the depth of Zuma’s deep mistrust of the West and the degree to which he takes political lessons from the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, who has no compunction about jailing political opponents.
We know about the paranoia. In 2014 Zuma took ill in the US and, instead of allowing himself to be treated there, fearing he had been poisoned, he flew home and then to Russia.
What is not widely known is that two weeks after he fired Nhlanhla Nene and ultimately replaced him with Gordhan in December 2015, he took a phone call from then US president Barack Obama.
Obama told him US surveillance (I presume a satellite) had detected a breach in security at the Pelindaba nuclear facility outside Pretoria.
But not to worry, said Obama, the situation seemed under control.
The South Africans checked and confirmed the breach. I don’t know any more detail. But instead of being grateful for the heads-up, Zuma was furious. Imperialists spying on him again.
It is a little appreciated fact that while South Africa dismantled its seven nuclear warheads before it became a democracy, they remain merely dismantled and not destroyed.
One has been cannibalised by the French. The rest are constantly watched by the Americans, as is our stock of around 220kg of weapons-grade uranium at Pelindaba.
As I understand it, Obama, not for the first time, offered Zuma a large investment in renewable energy in return for the verifiable destruction of the warheads.
He was turned down. We remain a nuclear power of sorts.
As for Trahar’s political risk, it stares us in the face.
Zuma has a highly skewed view of the world. In it, he is a victim of imperialist ideology and he must fight it, as he has all his life.
But this time it’s personal.
How far would he be prepared to go to stay safe?
These are perilous times.
Peter Bruce is Tiso Blackstar Group editor at large
OPINION: Mbeki seriously miscalculated political risk
Trahar said he thought political risk in South Africa had declined but, he said, “I won’t say it has completely disappeared.”
Thabo Mbeki, president at the time, quickly let fly at Trahar.
“The ANC and the government,” he growled in a newsletter, “would like to know to which political risk Trahar is referring.”
History improves over time, though. Now, 13 years later, we know Trahar was a little off the mark. Political risk wasn’t waning. It was there, simmering away.
And less than a year after asking Trahar what he was talking about, Mbeki had fired Jacob Zuma as deputy president.
Mbeki had been utterly wrong.
Trahar’s “political risk”, though dim at the time, is abundantly clear now. It’s a big ball of political fire hanging over us all.
The risk is Zuma; the all-powerful president of South Africa and an almost rogue president of the ANC is in the fight of his life (again) to control his succession as ANC leader when the party holds its elective congress in Johannesburg in December.
He has taken no prisoners and has taken a broom to his cabinet twice this year – bringing to 12 the number of cabinets he has presided over since his election in 2009.
We may not miss the former Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande much, but we sure do miss the former Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.
Zuma has had 18 charges of racketeering, corruption, fraud and money laundering against him reinstated and the economy is stuck in a deep hole dug mainly by himself.
And as it becomes clear to Zuma and everyone else that the president is not as totally in control of the coming party election as he would like, the tension in the country rises.
What will he do to his main challenger, his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, to stop him and to ensure that his candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, replaces him in the party job and, ultimately, as head of state?
He and Ramaphosa are openly at war and rumours swirl about plots to somehow get Ramaphosa out of the way before December.
Zuma could fire him as deputy president but that’s of the country, not the party. Ramaphosa could still contest and, in fact, firing him could strengthen him for December.
This week a WhatsApp message is doing the rounds, warning that Zuma will invent another intelligence report, as he did to fire Gordhan, and have Ramaphosa arrested and charged with treason as a Western “spy”.
That way Ramaphosa would not be able to stand at all.
To be honest, anyone could have floated this rumour, the Ramaphosa camp included. And Zuma denies the rumours. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the depth of Zuma’s deep mistrust of the West and the degree to which he takes political lessons from the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, who has no compunction about jailing political opponents.
We know about the paranoia. In 2014 Zuma took ill in the US and, instead of allowing himself to be treated there, fearing he had been poisoned, he flew home and then to Russia.
What is not widely known is that two weeks after he fired Nhlanhla Nene and ultimately replaced him with Gordhan in December 2015, he took a phone call from then US president Barack Obama.
Obama told him US surveillance (I presume a satellite) had detected a breach in security at the Pelindaba nuclear facility outside Pretoria.
But not to worry, said Obama, the situation seemed under control.
The South Africans checked and confirmed the breach. I don’t know any more detail. But instead of being grateful for the heads-up, Zuma was furious. Imperialists spying on him again.
It is a little appreciated fact that while South Africa dismantled its seven nuclear warheads before it became a democracy, they remain merely dismantled and not destroyed.
One has been cannibalised by the French. The rest are constantly watched by the Americans, as is our stock of around 220kg of weapons-grade uranium at Pelindaba.
As I understand it, Obama, not for the first time, offered Zuma a large investment in renewable energy in return for the verifiable destruction of the warheads.
He was turned down. We remain a nuclear power of sorts.
As for Trahar’s political risk, it stares us in the face.
Zuma has a highly skewed view of the world. In it, he is a victim of imperialist ideology and he must fight it, as he has all his life.
But this time it’s personal.
How far would he be prepared to go to stay safe?
These are perilous times.
Peter Bruce is Tiso Blackstar Group editor at large
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