BRUCE'S LIST: Sona: Was it a failure or a coup?

There are tons of ways to understand Jacob Zuma’s state of the nation (Sona) address in parliament on Thursday night. Some are hysterical. I don’t think we are a more militarised state today than we were last Monday. I think Zuma is a legitimately elected president and has every right to stand up and speak in parliament. I also think he has been a complete failure as a leader but that’s just my opinion. There are times when I want to hear what he has to say, even if it is just to give me some satirical material for the endless string of commentary I write. After the mayhem (planned, projected and brilliantly executed by the EFF) in parliament and after a speech in which once again the president failed to say what he means by “radical economic transformation” or by “inclusive growth” I’ve been looking for something other than what I think that might add some value to the debate about the Sona before we forget about it entirely.

I have faithfully watched and then read all Zuma’s Sona speeches. They’re not very good and he is seldom able to fulfil the promises he makes in them actually occur. And when he does, the results are sometimes disastrous. In the 2011 Sona he declared 2011 “The Year of Job Creation” and proceeded to almost double the size of the civil service. We now borrow in international debt markets to pay the salaries of the people he hired. It is one of the reasons, ironically, that ratings agencies’ opinions of our ability to pay our debts (our ratings) are important.

Anyway, Justice Malala seldom lets an audience down and he was very good today in The Times. The truth about Zuma is that he is on the way out, his power (though still immense) is leaking away with time. His support inside his party and its national executive is waning. Even if he succeeds in getting his ex-wife to succeed him (an insecure prospect still, as he cannot guarantee her the support she needs, even from inside his — and her — own province) the blatant criminality of his era will begin to wither. There is, of course, another view, and Neels Blom in Business Day sets it out well this morning. It is that quietly but effectively Zuma has staged a coup d’état in the guise of his presidency and that, in fact, SA is now run by (and for) a very small elite. The fact that we have become cynical about our politics should be no surprise; Blom might have added that when Zuma bemoaned the high levels of concentration in some sectors of the economy — he means banking — he wants to deconcentrate it enough to allow his cronies to get their hands on a bank of their own. I don’t think he’ll succeed and I don’t think the minister tasked with coming up with legislation to deconcentrate sectors like banking and retail — Ebrahim Patel at economic development — is a crook. He will approach his task with the fervour and intellectual integrity of the socialist he is but that will be it. He isn’t going to gift Zuma a bank. Here’s Blom.

And talking about Zuma’s own political power, I was fascinated by this story on Sunday. It was the lead in the Sunday Independent, and much longer in print, but this is a shortened version, it seems, from the Weekend Argus, part of the same group. Essentially, it seems that Zuma’s pick for chairman of the ANC in KwaZulu Natal, Sihle Zikalala, has been instructed by Zuma to campaign for Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s candidacy when the ANC elects a new leader to replace Zuma in December. Zikalala was elected only after a long and divisive effort to remove his predecessor, Senzo Mchunu, who has wide support in KZN but was not sufficiently enamoured of Zuma. Zikalala has had to tell his boss that support in the branches in KZN for Dlamini-Zuma is not exactly overwhelming. Zuma is said to have told Zikalala to go and do what was expected of him. Of course, Zikalala’s team deny any such conversation took place. But I am not convinced. The story I read in the Independent had an authentic ring to it.

Finally, the Guptas. I’ve lost count at what stage we are of finance minister Pravin Gordhan’s bid to get the courts to order the Guptas to stop pressing him to get South African banks to do business with them. But as part of the to and fro of depositions and affidavits, two of the people in attendance at the small gathering in late 2015 where deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas was offered the job of finance minister have made sworn statements denying that any such offer was made. Given who they are, you may say, they would, wouldn’t they? But it is an important step in a process that must somehow be cleared and completed. Did the Guptas offer Jonas treasury or didn’t they? Jonas says yes and the Guptas say no. Who is lying? A court must decide, surely? 

All Jonas has ever said to South Africans about the matter is this, and I have always thought it inadequate: “Therefore let me state the facts on the matter of whether I was approached by nongovernmental individuals in respect of the position of minister of finance. Members of the Gupta family offered me the position of minister of finance to replace then-minister Nene. I rejected this out of hand. The basis of my rejection of their offer is that it makes a mockery of our hard-earned democracy, the trust of our people and no-one apart from the president of the Republic appoints ministers.” He went a little further with former public protector Thuli Madonsela as she was compiling her report on state capture and one hopes he has told the Hawks the same thing. How hard, I guess I’m trying to ask, has Jonas himself tried to get his story heard by the right people? The fact is that we don’t know and that is a great pity. Here, for the record again, is the full version of the only public statement he has made on arguably still the biggest political story of the decade. It is all very well wrapping yourself in an ANC flag, Mcebisi Jonas, but what about some detail?