President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration is paying the price for having failed to deal decisively with the recalcitrant Jacob Zuma.
His administration has treated Zuma with kid gloves, perhaps most notably when Ramaphosa’s pardon spared him from a forced return to the Estcourt prison in August. Zuma lieutenant Arthur Fraser, who had earlier freed his patron on medical parole, was also mollycoddled by the Ramaphosa government.
One might expect Zuma, comfortably ensconced in his taxpayer-upgraded Nkandla compound, to while away his golden years in quiet retirement; but no. Over the weekend he denounced the state of the ANC under Ramaphosa, saying his conscience (he has one?) would not let him vote for the party under its current leadership.
He urged his supporters to join him in voting for the newly formed MK Party — which the ANC has accused of stealing the name of the real Umkhonto we Sizwe, which was disbanded at the end of the armed struggle.
Now Ramaphosa has no choice but to treat Zuma with the contempt he deserves; failing to do so will leave him looking even more impotent and weak. The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, which had been courting Zuma to campaign for it, has now been forced to turn against him. It described Zuma’s weekend announcement as the highest form of ill-discipline.
Zuma has effectively drawn a line in the sand that the ANC itself should have drawn some time ago. What is crucial now is what this development means for next year’s elections.
The ANC’s electoral support has been in steady decline over the past 15 years. It was under Zuma that the party recorded its first dramatic fall, losing control of three of the country’s eight metros in the 2016 local government election. The trend continued in the national elections in 2019, held a year after Ramaphosa had replaced Zuma in the Union Buildings.
The trajectory of doom is likely to continue next year, not so much because of the party’s internal feuding but because it has mishandled every aspect of public life, from the economy to the criminal justice system
In 2021, the ANC’s support declined again, falling below 50% for the first time.
The trajectory of doom is likely to continue next year, not so much because of the party’s internal feuding but because it has mishandled every aspect of public life, from the economy to the criminal justice system.
The ANC’s loss of popular support has been clear since 2016, and was set to deepen regardless of Zuma’s antics. A major setback at the polls next year is inevitable, not least because South Africans have little or nothing to show for Ramaphosa’s promised reforms after Zuma’s damaging decade in office — in fact, things have become even worse.
Zuma’s announcement will probably affect the ANC most in KZN and parts of Gauteng — the two most populous provinces — where polling had already showed it was highly vulnerable.
The ANC in KZN faces the likely prospect of moving to the opposition benches. The IFP’s support in the province is resurging, from 20% in 2016 to 26% in 2021. The Zuma-endorsed MK Party may lure voters away from the ANC, the IFP and the EFF, but not enough to give it much clout.
What is significant about Zuma’s announcement is his move to unite MK and like-minded parties such as the EFF, the UDM and his earlier political project, the African Transformation Movement. The character of these parties is clear: they are elite projects, driven by powerful business lobby groups, former spooks and even the criminal underworld, using the masses as voting fodder to capture the state.
Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection director Prof Susan Booysen describes this dynamic as “opposition of a special type” — referring to the fact that the parties are largely made up of disgruntled former ANC members.
Such an alliance could yield interesting dynamics in KZN, Gauteng and perhaps the Northern Cape, provinces where, to remain in power, the ANC will probably have to enter a coalition with someone.
The ANC national executive committee has already expressed its displeasure at the coalition deals that the party’s provincial structures have made with the EFF in Gauteng and KZN. After the Zuma snub for the Ramaphosa leadership, coalition agreements with the EFF are likely to fall even further out of favour.
But if the ANC did decide to co-operate with an MK-EFF-UDM grouping, Zuma’s desperate bid to extend his political life would gain traction.
Whether it feeds the monsters of its own creation will determine the pace of the ANC’s painful decline and ultimate removal from office. Sadly, South Africa itself will be forced to suffer along with it.
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