JAUNDICED EYE
Jacob Zuma’s presidency has been disastrous not only for South Africa. There is every sign that it is also destroying him.
Zuma, born 12 April 1942, is of course no spring chicken. But the president’s appearance, as recorded in photographs over the past few years, has deteriorated markedly. Once bursting with energy and with a healthy colour, he has transformed into a grey, sometimes faltering figure.
At the beginning of his first term in 2009, Zuma looked to be in excellent health, aside from a minor weight problem. He had remarkable energy and vigour for a man then already in his late 60s, as demonstrated by his enthusiasm for young lovers, additional wives, and siring offspring.
It was only in 2014, after a gruelling election campaign, that concerns were first openly voiced about his health. His family disclosed that he has diabetes, and the media reported rumours of high blood pressure and a heart condition.
Zuma’s family also said that he might step down as president, a couple of years into this, his final presidential term. It’s a prospect that at the time was dismissed out of hand by the ANC, although it must still tantalise the increasing number within his party colleagues who want him gone.
By June that year, at the state of the nation address, Zuma seemed frail and to have lost a lot of weight. “His walking seemed stiffer than usual and, when going down the marble steps to the National Assembly doors, he needed assistance from speaker Baleka Mbete, who was walking beside him,” reported Times Live.
The health of a nation’s president is an entirely legitimate subject of discussion. But since South Africa does not subscribe to the sometimes embarrassingly detailed medical disclosure that American presidents are subjected to, few know for certain what is the actual state of Zuma’s health.
That is, not unless he does develop a debilitating physical ailment that impairs his ability to carry out his job, in which case he would presumably resign and Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa would step into the breech. After all, this is not Zimbabwe, where an ailing, increasingly zombie-like head of state can, with impunity, periodically disappear overseas for secret medical treatment, to return briefly revitalised.
So it is not Zuma’s physical health that should be bothering us, but perhaps rather his mental health.
Fortunately, we do already know that he is not certifiably crazy. During a road show a week ago, he had words of reassurance for his supporters: “At least I know who [my enemies] are and what they are doing. I am not worried. If I was crazy, I would make the whole of South Africa crazy as well.”
Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we? An entire nutty nation? On the other hand, how would we tell the difference from now?
Nevertheless, some of Zuma supposed statements during this week’s marathon three-day national executive committee (NEC) where he faced an ousting, were a tad worrying, in the clues they gave to his mental state.
There were escalating manifestations of the paranoid and persecutory tendencies that Zuma has fostered in the ANC for some time. In the Zuma camp’s view, any political reverses – the 783 criminal charges that hang over his head; having to reimburse the fiscus for work on his private home; investment rating downgrades; or the Public Protector’s report on state capture – are caused by “counter-revolutionaries”, “CIA spies”, and “imperialist collaborators”.
His own comrades’ attempt to oust him, Zuma told the NEC, was the result of exactly such a Western plot. That was why he would not resign, for to do so would be to hand himself over to his enemies, who wanted him jailed.
Zuma’s enemies are seemingly all around. The reason he had been jeered at the Nelson Mandela memorial service in Johannesburg was because Gauteng ANC officials wished to humiliate him, he said.
And then there are the assassination attempts. According to a Business Day report, Zuma said in his NEC closing remarks that he been poisoned three times by those “who wanted to prevent him leading the ANC and the country”.
It is a matter of public record that the Hawks are investigating a poisoning allegation against his wife Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, after the president fell ill two years ago. The two other claimed attempts have not been mentioned previously and apparently came as news to his NEC colleagues.
Whatever the jibes, Zuma is certainly not “crazy”, as he put it. But clearly he is taking a lot of physical and mental strain. The issue is for how long this can continue without potentially dire results for both him and SA.
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