One of the great mysteries of South African politics is how President Jacob Zuma manages to survive career-ending crisis after career-ending crisis, each sufficient unto itself to have floored any other politician.
Yet Zuma keeps on going. What is it about his political make-up that enables him to navigate the most treacherous of political storms?
His Polokwane coalition block – the ANC Youth League, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the South African Communist Party, ANC Women’s League, traditional leadership and black business groups – has imploded on the back of dashed expectations.
Julius Malema has formed the Economic Freedom Fighters and has mobilised many young people in rural and urban areas who once supported Zuma and the ANC.
The SACP is under attack from ANC leaders and members for using communist rhetoric while enriching themselves.
The women’s league has become irrelevant and is deeply divided over who should succeed Zuma.
Meanwhile many black business leaders and organisations that once supported Zuma are feeling the economic pinch as their businesses shrink due to his policy decisions.
And the black middle class, struggling to hold fast to its new found status in a tough economic climate, is increasingly distancing itself, not only from Zuma, but from the ANC.
Indeed the country’s continuing economic troubles may be the turning point not only for South African politics but Zuma’s career.
For the first time the economic interests of the many constituencies he has thus far adroitly stage-managed are in peril.
There were loud howls of outrage – not vented in public, but behind the scenes – from the ANC leadership over Zuma’s sacking of Nene.
And if the ANC loses key councils in the 2016 local government elections because of a backlash against the Zuma presidency, it will reduce the ANC’s ability to appease supporters through state patronage – jobs, tenders and contracts – which is crucial to Zuma’s political survival also.
Faced with an intensifying economic tsunami Zuma is running out of solid ground as his support base fragments. Finally his well-developed survival instincts may not be enough.
William Gumede is chairperson of the Democracy Works Foundation and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg)
Running on empty
Yet Zuma keeps on going. What is it about his political make-up that enables him to navigate the most treacherous of political storms?
His Polokwane coalition block – the ANC Youth League, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, the South African Communist Party, ANC Women’s League, traditional leadership and black business groups – has imploded on the back of dashed expectations.
Julius Malema has formed the Economic Freedom Fighters and has mobilised many young people in rural and urban areas who once supported Zuma and the ANC.
The SACP is under attack from ANC leaders and members for using communist rhetoric while enriching themselves.
The women’s league has become irrelevant and is deeply divided over who should succeed Zuma.
Meanwhile many black business leaders and organisations that once supported Zuma are feeling the economic pinch as their businesses shrink due to his policy decisions.
And the black middle class, struggling to hold fast to its new found status in a tough economic climate, is increasingly distancing itself, not only from Zuma, but from the ANC.
Indeed the country’s continuing economic troubles may be the turning point not only for South African politics but Zuma’s career.
For the first time the economic interests of the many constituencies he has thus far adroitly stage-managed are in peril.
There were loud howls of outrage – not vented in public, but behind the scenes – from the ANC leadership over Zuma’s sacking of Nene.
And if the ANC loses key councils in the 2016 local government elections because of a backlash against the Zuma presidency, it will reduce the ANC’s ability to appease supporters through state patronage – jobs, tenders and contracts – which is crucial to Zuma’s political survival also.
Faced with an intensifying economic tsunami Zuma is running out of solid ground as his support base fragments. Finally his well-developed survival instincts may not be enough.
William Gumede is chairperson of the Democracy Works Foundation and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg)
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