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Jacob Zuma’s biggest triumph in Mangaung in 2012 was not just about securing a second term as ANC president; it was about the consolidation of his power.
His ascent to the ANC’s presidency five years earlier had been on the back of what was known as the “coalition of the wounded”, a diverse collection of forces and individuals who felt marginalised or hard done by during the Thabo Mbeki years. They included Cosatu, the ANC Youth League, the MK Veterans’ Association and leaders who were turfed, overlooked, traumatised or victimised by Mbeki. They also included some who were genuinely concerned about Mbeki’s authoritarian leadership style and his tendency to believe he had the answers to everything from astrophysics to the improvement of the Paralympics team’s performance.
Zuma discovered, in the early months of his presidency, that he did not have total loyalty in his national executive committee. Many didn’t take him seriously and saw him merely as the only vehicle to remove Mbeki. He and his lieutenants would spend the next few years weeding out this lot and building a base of loyalists. So, by 2012, only the most naive believed Zuma’s disastrous first five years would have fatally weakened him.
He roundly trounced his deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe. More importantly, his camp achieved near total control of the NEC, populating it with dozens of no-name brands and fierce loyalists who owed their political security and material wellbeing to his patronage. It was this core that was to protect him through the scandals and devastating misjudgements of his second term.
Zuma’s absolute control of the NEC and even tighter control of the national working committee has ensured that discordant voices are reduced to a whimper, even when matters of principle and national interest are at stake. ANC insiders talk of how a squadron of loyal “bouncers” is always deployed inside the NEC to slant debate and ensure that the more lightweight and dependent members troop along with the “correct” position.
With the connivance of the chairperson – that impartial lady who runs National Assembly sittings with absolute fairness – those who dare offer differing opinions are drowned out in these carefully stage-managed “debates”.
But with popular opinion swinging dramatically against Zuma, many ardent loyalists are finding the blind allegiance hard to sustain. The party is hurting badly and the person being defended is showing no appreciation.
There will not be the one single bullet that takes out Zuma, as some have expected each time he has been engulfed in scandal. It will be an accumulation of the slime that the Zuma rock has gathered as it rolled on that will become too heavy for the ANC to carry. In the past six months, the slime has been gathering at such a rapid pace that it will be a miracle if he makes it to the ANC’s 2017 conference still at the helm.
Makhanya is City Press editor at large
