The troubled days of Jacob Zuma

Dar es Salaam. In a dramatic midnight cabinet reshuffle last week, South African President Jacob Zuma, 74, sacked half his ministers, including the the locally and internationally well-regarded Pravin Gordhan, who held the finance docket.

The majority South Africans learned about this in the early hours of Thursday morning, and when they did, the country plunged into a political crisis and further split the African National Congress (ANC). The 105-year-old party has ruled unchallenged since the end of apartheid in 1994, but is now in disarray.

Analysts are convinced that by taking the unusual step of swinging the axe without consulting senior members of his troubled party, Mr Zuma has taken the biggest political risk of his scandal-hit presidency.

There is possibly no one reason why he could have done that. What is circulating is mere speculation about the motives. Supporters say Zuma needed to act against those who have blocked “transformation” of this stunningly beautiful, but deeply troubled land, where the consequences of nearly 50 years of apartheid and centuries of colonialism remain all too evident to all but the most obtuse visitor.

However, critics accuse Mr Zuma of hoping to assure the succession of a former wife who may protect him from multiple corruption charges once he has left office. Mr Zuma will soon have to step down as ANC leader and whoever fills the post will almost certainly become president after parliamentary polls in 2019. Other opponents suggest Zuma is seeking to take control of the finance ministry, to push through deals that will favour cronies, or simply preparing to unleash a raft of populist, economically unsustainable policies in a bid to reverse the ANC’s electoral decline.

The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said it would file an urgent legal request to try and block the reshuffle and separately push for a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in the President.

And yesterday, the powerful Confederation of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) called on the president to step down as he lacks the necessary leadership skills.

“Cosatu no longer believes that the president is the right person to unite and lead the movement‚ the alliance and the country‚“ said general secretary Bheki Ntshalintshali.

New collective government

“We think that after all his undeniable contribution to both the movement and government‚ the time has arrived for him to step down and allow the country to be led forward by a new collective at a government level.”

In the past couple of months‚ Cosatu has publicly endorsed South Africa’s deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa to take over as ANC president when Zuma’s term as party leader comes to an end in December.

As well as the critical deputy President, the ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe earlier said he was “very uncomfortable” with how the reshuffle was conducted, suggesting Mr Zuma had sacked competent ministers while retaining those who “do not perform”.

Mr Zuma has survived such troubled times before - as well as an attempted coup by senior party members late last year – despite having to pay back millions in state funds he spent on his private home.

The President is expected to survive once again, but his growing unpopularity could seriously harm the ANC’s prospects ahead of the 2019 general election. He still enjoys huge support, despite all this chaos. The ANC’s powerful youth wing and Women’s League both backed the changes, calling Mr Gordhan’s replacement – a former home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba – an “experienced and intelligent” appointment.

Mr Gigaba is a 45-year-old loyalist with limited financial or business experience. In an interview last year, he spoke of how the ANC was ultimately “a fighting liberation movement” that, having overcome apartheid and seized political power, was now battling to gain control of the economy.

Mr Zuma uses similar language, blaming “white monopoly capitalism” for attempts to oust him. That is reminiscent of the months that led to the crisis in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

Once he was cornered by growing opposition at home, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe took a swipe at “White imperialists”, offloaded perceived enemies in government and embarked on populist policies that have turned Africa’s bread basket into a casket.

Likewise, Mr Zuma sees the world in terms of a struggle, and this is unsurprising in South Africa. Nelson Mandela was not the only South African to walk a long road to freedom, or to continue his march on a relatively rocky road beyond.

Mr Zuma was born in the remote village of Nkandla in the centre of the historic homeland of the Zulu people in 1942. After his policeman father died, he accompanied his mother to Durban, where she became a domestic worker.

He received no formal schooling, later saying that he decided to educate himself when he realised that he, the eldest son, needed to earn to support his siblings. At a recent visit to a school, he quoted Shakespeare, which he said he had believed at the time he needed to prove his new scholarship.

When he was six, minding herds in the hills around Nkandla, the National Party took power in South African and began to construct the racist and repressive system known as “apartheid”.

At 17, influenced by a relative who was a committed union member, Zuma joined the ANC.

In 1960, the party was banned and its leadership opted for a strategy of armed struggle. This was a failure, resulting in massive arrests of members.

Mr Zuma, who was an early recruit to the ANC’s clandestine military wing, was detained as he tried to leave the country for military training and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

He was sent to the famous jail on Robben Island, where he joined Nelson Mandela and other senior ANC leaders. On his release, Zuma returned to activism. In 1976, the Soweto uprising marked a new wave of resistance, and the beginning of the end for the increasingly beleaguered apartheid regime.

Mr Zuma, who had left South Africa for Mozambique shortly after his release from prison, was involved in organising and training the many young volunteers who sought out ANC-run camps in neighbouring countries.

He also undertook dangerous missions himself. Canny, brave, hard-working, forthright, but charming when he needed to be, the young party cadre rose rapidly up the ANC hierarchy, taking on the crucial, and powerful, position of head of internal intelligence and security.

This means, commentators and former associates say today, that he knows “where all the bodies are buried”. Given the violence of the times and the fact that Zuma was a member of the shadowy ANC disciplinary arm, Mbokodo (“the stone that crushes”), the reference may not be entirely metaphorical.