Three reasons why the ANC is wrong on Zuma
ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu yesterday responded to the furore surrounding President Zuma by stating that "there is nothing wrong [with what] the President had done" and suggesting that the matter is private, and thus does not warrant any sort of public response (see here).
The ANC's position is profoundly problematic, for three reasons:
First, it demonstrates that the ruling party does not understand the problem, or the relationship between public office and private behaviour.
Public office - that is, those positions in which people serve the public interest - differs from the private sector in one fundamental way: the people appointed to those positions are elected. As such, they are required to embody a series of principles and values, upon which their support is based. In this regard, their personal behaviour reflects directly on their public office, for their mandate is borne of their private attitudes. The more important the public position, the more a person's attitudes come to bear on their public persona. Hence the question: "Is this person fit to be President?" or "Is this person fit to hold public office?"
It is for this reason that people resign from public office if they are found to have violated the principles which they claim to embody. If a public representative says corruption is bad in public, but commits corruption in private, his or her situation becomes untenable. This contradiction undermines public faith in their convictions and in the integrity of their office.
In much the same way, if Jacob Zuma says unprotected sex with multiple sexual partners is bad in public, he is expected to uphold those values in private, otherwise there is little or no reason to take seriously anything he or his government says.
Second, it demonstrates that the ANC does not understand that sex, by its nature is a private affair.
People do not have sex in their public capacity. As such, any comment on sex and the attitudes that accompany it is, by first principles, a comment on private behaviour. That is the very challenge at the heart of government's campaign on HIV/Aids, to influence people's private attitudes. In this case, the problem is particularly serious because the issue the President is being duplicitous on concerns a national threat - HIV/Aids - and thus the damage done is more acute.
Third, it demonstrates that the ANC does not understand the principles of good leadership.
The gulf between the President's personal actions and his public position has a series of consequences for his ability to properly lead. A good leader is both consistent and transparent. That is, they embody a series of principles and should be able to explain their action in terms of those principles. Jacob Zuma cannot do this. And the problem is not limited to his attitude to unprotected sex either. He is building a reputation as duplicitous on a myriad different issues. He openly criticised Robert Mugabe in the run-up to his election, since then, he has fallen silent; he suggested that our labour laws would be reformed, he has done no such thing; he preaches one position on affirmative action to one section of the population and another to the other. And so on. These are not the traits of good leadership.
The ANC's inability to tell the difference suggests too that it has two sets of values, one for the South African public and another for President Jacob Zuma.
Mr. Mthembu got one thing right at least. He said: "We do not see the correlation between the ANC policies on HIV and AIDS and the President's personal relationships." We do not either.
For this reason, the President ought to apologise and act to better embody the values he advocates for other South Africans.
The only question is whether, if he apologises this time around, anyone will actually believe him.
Statement issued by Democratic Alliance leader, Helen Zille, February 2 2010
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