There’s a nifty little quote in John Wayne’s 1965 movie, In Harm’s Way, that ANC leaders might like to read twice and then reflect upon. It says: “Indecision is a virus that can run through an army and destroy its will to win. Or even to survive.”
Since Jacob Zuma launched his new party on December 16, stealing the ANC guerrilla army’s name, logo, songs and even history, the party has been standing by silently. Zuma has insulted its leaders, claimed he is still a member of the party and its national executive committee (NEC), organised against it, and vowed to topple it. The response from the ANC has been fear, infighting, indecision and silence. The party’s leaders have been at each other’s throats about how to respond to Zuma, with national chair Gwede Mantashe lambasting secretary-general Fikile Mbalula for confessing that the party broke the law to protect its former leader over corruption charges in the building of his Nkandla palace.
Zuma has been running circles around the ANC, stealing the limelight and rebuilding his RET faction outside the party. He has accused President Cyril Ramaphosa, his successor, of destroying the party and of being corrupt. Ramaphosa has been like a rabbit caught in headlights, silent and wide-eyed, giving neither direction nor leadership to his confused flock.
Things are going so well for Zuma that he has now openly broached the subject of becoming president again. At the weekend he told a gathering of the Nazareth Baptist Church in KwaZulu-Natal: “I was quickly removed before the end of my term as president because I was trying to change people’s lives, but their behaviour has made me want to come [back]. I want to return to change our situation.”
A spirited response from the ANC highlighting the “nine wasted years” under Zuma would have been in order here, but the party has been in hiding even though this was the organisation that fired him, and has now confessed to protecting him from corruption charges. Instead, there has been silence from ANC leaders. Even the party’s allies have wondered what is going on. On Saturday, SACP general secretary Solly Mapaila bluntly told the ANC to act: “I don’t know why the NEC is dilly-dallying about this. He [Zuma] can’t be allowed to divide a liberation movement as old as the ANC.”
Zuma is the fruit of the ANC. The party raised him, fed him and protected him at every turn, and is still afraid to tell him off
Mapaila should save himself the stress of advising the ANC. The truth is that it is Ramaphosa and his close allies in the party who have mollycoddled, protected and appeased Zuma for years while the rest of us called for action against him. When Zuma was accused of raping his own comrade’s daughter, the ANC built a ring of support around him. When he destroyed institutions such as the Scorpions, they enabled him. When he brought in the Guptas, they aided and abetted him. When he dodged his arms deal corruption trial, they sang for him.
Over the past six years, the ANC sprang Zuma from jail (he apparently suffers from a “terminal illness”, but I have not seen a healthier 81-year-old in my life), then changed the law to allow him out, and then did sweet nothing to send his close allies involved in state capture to jail. Zuma is the fruit of the ANC. The party raised him, fed him and protected him at every turn, and is still afraid to tell him off.
Zuma will now destroy the ANC. Over the next few months, ANC leaders will continue to coddle the man, try to make nice with him because they fear him, refuse to draw the line on his dangerous utterances (he claimed our elections are rigged, an outright lie that can have devastating consequences), and allow support for him to grow. Ramaphosa and the ANC have fed this monster, and if they do not act to expose him now, he will eat them up.
Many ANC members are already confused by their leaders’ silence, while Zuma acolytes are claiming victory on social media and elsewhere. ANC members’ morale is low and being sapped daily. Their leaders have, for the past month, failed to reassure them.
If Ramaphosa and his party continue in this manner, Zuma will become an electoral and societal force again — and this will be the end of the ANC. Though some might say that’s not such a bad thing.
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