A Bad Day for Zuma

Wednesday, March 16 2016, was the sort of day that Jacob Zuma must have wished would never happen.  In that one day, already threatened by the arrival of the Moodys team to consider the downgrading of South African investment instruments to junk status, was made worse by the declaration by a former ANC Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Works, that she had been offered a Ministerial position by the Guptas, while Jacob Zuma was skulking in an adjoining room so that he could claim not to have been a part of the Constitution-breaching act by his co-conspirators.  That was aggravated by the statement of Mcebisi Jonas that he had been offered the position of Minister of Finance by the same Gupta family, an act also in breach of the Constitution and strenuously denied by the Guptas, Zuma and the ANC.  That was exacerbated by the incredibly stupid comment by an ANC spokesperson that the offer could not have been made, as every appointment to the Cabinet was made by Zuma, in his capacity as State President, after close consultation with the Cabinet.  Either Zuma and the ANC are lying, or the whole Cabinet, who expressed clear surprise, as well as lack of foreknowledge of the replacement of Minister Nene by a backbencher, whose sole qualifications for the job (later strenuously denied by Zuma, claiming that van Rooyen was the best-qualified Minister of Finance that the country had ever had) were that his house had been torched by exasperated residents, and that he was more compliant in allowing the Guptas, as well as his son, to advance their personal interests at the costs of the citizens.  That statement implies that the entire Cabinet lied to the people, on more than a few occasions, when they disclaimed having had any part in that disastrous act by the State President.  That came after the Court judgement condemning in very strong terms the permission granted, surreptitiously, to al Bashir, a wanted murderer, and saying that the Government, almost certainly at the direction of Zuma, had committed an act of international criminality in failing to observe an unequivocal Order of the High Court to place the wanted man under arrest and in disregarding a binding Warrant of Arrest by the International Criminal Court.  Then, just to top it off, FIFA has declared that the South African Government paid a bribe to get the 2010 Soccer World Cup, and then lied about its actions in covering up that act of criminality.  Those last chickens are yet to come home to roost, when the facts are revealed of who authorized the bribe, who paid it, and who benefitted from the World Cup, then hailed as a major achievement of the country.  What is the betting that the names ‘Zuma’ and ‘Gupta’ will be part of those revelations?

These facts are a vindication of the increasing level of disgust felt by the average South Africans about the man who tries to fill the space left behind by Nelson Mandela.  It is no surprise that the word ‘Zuma’ is now viewed by South Africans as a swearword, embodying every evil perpetrated by the ANC under the man.

The next question is ‘now what?’

Zuma can take the honourable course and step down from his role as Head of State.  That is unlikely.  Zuma has proved repeatedly that he is a man totally devoid of honour, of any feeling of responsibility for the honest management of the economy in the interests of the people.  In addition to that lack of honour there must also be the fear of the punishment that any halfway decent replacement will wreak on him.  Quite apart from his many criminal acts as State President, he still has to face the 783 criminal charges that were made to disappear in order for him to embark on his role of accumulating wealth while he destroyed the South African economy and spread racial disharmony throughout the population.  The chances are that Zuma will spend the rest of his life behind bars, to the extent that the fellow criminals will permit him to live, given the seemingly prevailing view that Zuma is the Anti-Christ.  The chances seem to be good that Zuma will try to prevent this happening.  That would imply that he is able to enlist the support of the Cabinet Ministers in order to tough it through, spreading liberal amounts of largesse, even more than he has done so far to keep his corrupt group of cronies in office, in order to buy their support.  It seems unlikely that the thinking members of the Party will believe that that process will be able to endure for too long, with the country already on its knees and likely to hold on for much longer in the face of the punishment that will almost certainly be meted to the country for the actions of their leaders.

The chances seem to be good that the only way out for Zuma will be to declare a state of emergency as soon as the impending ratings downgrade becomes reality, making the already tight financial constraints on the country infinitely worse.  Zuma, in his mind a proven State President with the practically unlimited resources of the Gupta family to support him, will take full control of the economy, appointing his henchmen to key positions (those key positions that are not already in his control) and bypassing Parliament altogether, rather than by means of using his horde of witless and unthinking ANC cadres to rubber stamp his insanities.  He has the example of several friends in Africa, people he admires limitlessly, such as Mugabe and al Bashir, that strongman tactics are the best and the easiest.  In addition to that, he has proven, to himself and to the world, that it is possible for the State President of a modern, supposedly civilised country to disregard the Constitution, to lie to Parliament, to ignore questions relating to his conduct, to enrich himself and his family beyond imagination, to brazenly appropriate the funds of the State to his own benefit, and then to suborn a supposedly respectable and honest Cabinet Minister to provide a cover up for his actions.  He has openly displayed his contempt for the laws of the country, even the most important of them, the Constitution, he has repeatedly breached his sacred Oath of Office, he has misled the Ministers of his Cabinet, supposedly honourable men and women sworn to uphold the Constitution and the law, he has ignored the Orders of the High Court on several occasions, and he has got away with it.  Why not now, when his entire future hangs on it?  He has misread the mood of the people, of the country and of the international investment community, and he has believed, and continues to do so, that he is above all of them.  After all, the Speaker of the House has told the world that the President is above the laws that apply to others, that he does not answer to them.  There is certainly nothing, in the sly but untutored mind of this goatherd made good, that can stop him in his quest for complete control, no answerability to Parliament or the people, no overarching rule of law, no moral compunction, to prevent his taking the country as his personal fiefdom.  To strengthen that view, Zuma has a personal security force of seven thousand, paid by the people, and answerable only to him.  He has the Hawks, the South African Police Service, the National Intelligence Agency and the South African Defence Force in his pocket.

What is the betting that we will see a move in this direction in the next days?

While today was a bad day for Zuma, the heavy clouds on the horizon portend much worse for the country in the near future.