BRUCE'S LIST: SA’s prebudget blues

I feel quite emotional about what finance minister Pravin Gordhan will do later today when he delivers the national budget. Before and as he speaks, the television cameras will turn to the government benches. As that happens, I’ll try and identify those MPs who want him to succeed and those who don’t. In a way, the individuals don’t matter. The numbers do – and, for the moment, they’re against him. That, at least, is the calculation of the wiliest political calculator in the land, President Jacob Zuma.

Zuma will applaud Gordhan along. So will deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa, sitting next to him. Only, Ramaphosa wants Gordhan to succeed. This is the thing about the fighting inside the ANC: it is door-to-door, office-to-office, bench-to-bench. It is so close and so fierce it is hard to watch.

But watch we must, so we don’t forget. Gordhan is the epitome of courage; he is grace under pressure. Zuma, on the other hand, is a calculating sneak who daren’t wear his politics on his sleeve because it is just too disgraceful.

Fortunately, the attempt to sneak Brian Molefe into parliament has gone awry, with at least three ANC branches claiming he is a member and at least one claiming he is not. It is a sign of the pit. How does the same ward confirm and deny Molefe is a member in good standing (he has to be to become an MP)? The answer is that the ANC creates parallel branches when existing branches prove too difficult to manage. It is one of the ways Zuma hopes to get his former wife elected president of the ANC later this year – just cheat.

Molefe may yet get into parliament, but he is a bit of a shrinking violet when he isn’t in full control, and he cannot be enjoying the spectacle his nomination has ignited. But I don’t think, all other colourful speculation aside, that Zuma will have the guts to fire Gordhan. There are no plausible replacements, at least not ones who would keep the country’s finances safe. Molefe would borrow and waste in national government as he did at Eskom. Ramaphosa might assuage the business community, but the process of getting him into treasury would irrevocably split the party, particularly if Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma were to replace him as deputy president.

But you can see how Zuma would try to justify that. He gets her in as head of the ANC and then mitigates the imbalance caused when, as with Thabo Mbeki before him, a head of state is no longer head of the ruling party for about 18 months. He would argue that Dlamini-Zuma as deputy would resolve what might become another Mbeki-like constitutional crisis. Remember, our politics is about saving Zuma from a corruption trial and a guilty verdict that would send him to jail.

Business Day’s prebudget editorial today says what must be on the minds of many: we don’t know how Gordhan will find R28bn in new revenue — and, even if he does, and even if it hurts our pockets, will it be enough? While the Gupta crowd runs free and wild over our institutions and over common sense, can any budget outfox the politics? 

On the same page in Business Day, I thought Hilary Joffe’s thoughts on the attack on the banks were wonderful. Obviously the banks that have been caught rigging exchange rates must take what is coming to them (and if the traders involved can’t be prosecuted, may they never be allowed to work in a financial institution again). But you mess with the banking system at your peril. It is, as she says, the oil that lubricates the economy.

In case you’re depressed, don’t be. I wrote in my Sunday Times column earlier this week that DA leader Mmusi Maimane is moulding the party to himself, and planning and plotting a way forward in a way other political leaders just aren’t. Here is the result of some of that: 24-year-old Hlomela Bucwa’s maiden speech in parliament. Note the respect she gets from government benches.

Finally, the death of Wallaby rugby player (but Cape Town boy) Dan Vickerman affected me. I don’t know how he died, but I do know he was battling with depression. It is our silent catastrophe.