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While President Zuma has alienated many supporters and voters, the state of democracy is stronger in SA, writes Solani Ngobeni
When Jacob Zuma was elected as president of the ANC, the middle classes bemoaned what they deemed as an ill-fated choice by the ANC’s leadership.
Many analysts opined as to how bad the Zuma presidency was likely to be for the country.
Of course, on that front, Zuma has proved without a shadow of a doubt how out of depth he is in running Africa’s most sophisticated economy.
However, there are a number of benefits that we have derived from the disaster that has been the Zuma years.
When Zuma was elected, a sizable portion of the ANC membership broke away to form the Congress of the People (Cope), thus reducing the ANC majority and alleviating – albeit temporarily – the prospect of a one-party state.
When former ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema was expelled, he went on to form the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), which also ate a sizable chunk of the ANC electorate.
We would not have known that the powers of the Public Protector were binding had it not been for Zuma’s belligerence on the Nkandla debacle.
Former president Kgalema Motlanthe once opined that the ANC should not have expelled Malema, but should rather have sought to reach a political settlement with him.
Granted, there was a sizable group of ANC members who felt that Malema and his coterie had overplayed their hand and were becoming way too big for their boots.
Be that as it may, there is a school of thought that maintains that managing Malema and his exuberant supporters was a strategy worth pursuing, rather than losing the support base that joined the breakaway EFF.
Looking at the results of the local government elections – especially in the Nelson Mandela Bay, Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane metros – one cannot help but feel that had the ANC accepted Motlanthe’s recommendation that Malema not be expelled, it would not have lost so much support to the EFF.
While Zuma’s ascendancy to the presidency has been divisive in society generally, and in the ANC in particular, it has also been pivotal in strengthening our democratic polity.
These local government elections made it clear that the ANC had been humbled in the big metros, which will hopefully compel the party to start treating the electorate with some modicum of respect and humility.
It is generally accepted that – after the 2014 national elections – the ANC in Gauteng behaved and governed better and with a more enhanced sense of humility, especially after only garnering 52% of the votes.
It had realised that, as Malema opined, “there is no contract between the electorate and politicians”. South Africans – even poor, black people – do not have an obligation to vote for the ANC.
The ANC, or any other party for that matter, has no divine right to govern in perpetuity. The ANC’s right to govern should be premised on a commitment to serve the people and failure to do so should result in the electorate choosing other parties instead.
So, while those of us in the middle classes abhor what Zuma stands for – such as the corruption so endemic in state institutions; the way in which incompetent cadres such as Hlaudi Motsoeneng and Dudu Myeni are allowed to wreak havoc in state-owned enterprises; state capture; and general mediocrity that is now the hallmark of the state apparatus – we can thank him for strengthening our democratic resolve.
Zuma’s presidency of the ANC saw the party experiencing two breakaway episodes in a period of five years. First Cope, then the EFF. Both these breakaways substantially reduced the ANC’s dominance in our body politic.
Zuma’s presidency of the ANC saw the ANC Youth League reduced to a badly written press release by incompetents at Luthuli House. There is now a realisation that allowing Zuma to become more important than the party has had a detrimental effect on the ANC.
A brief reading of the history of the ANC clearly illustrates that the founding fathers were men of letters. Some were lawyers and others were doctors, while others were priests. Zuma is probably the first illiterate president of the ANC.
So, the constant besmirching of the black intelligentsia as “clever blacks” – as though black people should wear stupidity as some badge of honour – has not been helpful for the ANC cause, especially in the highly developed metros where the black intelligentsia is concentrated.
While Zuma’s presidency will probably be remembered as a disaster in many respects, please spare a positive thought for the man who inadvertently strengthened our democracy.
By the way, the chap gave us Thuli Madonsela and Menzi Simelane.
Wasn’t it Zuma’s presidency that illustrated that if a president failed to apply his mind when making crucial appointments, his decisions could be taken up on review and overturned, as was the case with Simelane?
Wasn’t it Zuma’s presidency that illustrated that the powers of the Public Protector were binding?
While Zuma’s presidency has no doubt taken mediocrity to a new level, we should be thankful that it has, to a large extent, destroyed the majoritarianism of the ANC, inadvertently strengthening multiparty democracy.
The 2016 local government elections humbled the ANC, especially in the big metros.
When the election results of the various metros were announced last weekend, I could not help but have a rather peculiar elation that the fact that the ANC could not win with an outright majority was all thanks to one man – Jacob Zuma – the unlikely hero of our democracy.
Ngobeni is a book publisher and the 2007 South African finalist in the British Council’s International Young Publisher of the Year awards programme.
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