Top-ranking members of the ANC may, it is rumoured, try to persuade Jacob Zuma,66, to abandon his ambitions to become national president. In return he can continue as president of the ANC (the party) and be generously reimbursed (his financial affairs, notoriously chaotic, require management). In addition, the corruption charges against him will fall away. He would be given a presidential pardon (as provided for in the national constitution) or perhaps some kind of plea bargain agreement would be struck.
This is the broad outline of a plan to elect a president who would be more generally acceptable to all sections of the public and restore some of the ANC's lost integrity and status. Some may pause at the thought of the post-Polokwane ANC launching its career by interfering in the legal process, but supporters of the "sidetrack Zuma" project say they would be acting in the country's best interests.
It is being presented as the least bad alternative of the options on offer. One of these would be the introduction of legislation granting immunity to all heads of state, now and in the future. The proponents of this deal claim to speak on behalf of a growing number of "serious minded" ANC members who see the party being torn apart by factionalism, increasing violent infighting and "hooligan" behaviour.
The political and economic advantages for South Africa of installing an acceptable president, it is argued, outweigh the ethical consideration of an aborted trial. Those of this view quote William Gumede who wrote in the Mail & Guardian (June 4): "It is difficult to imagine a leader as morally compromised as Zuma effectively leading the rejuvenation of democracy in the ANC and South Africa." Gumede's article broadly presents the case against Zuma becoming the country's president.
If Zuma accepts the ANC deal, either Matthews Phosa, former premier of Mpumalanga province, or Kgalema Motlanthe, former ANC secretary general (under Mbeki), will be nominated for the presidency. If Phosa is elected, Motlanthe will become national deputy president. And vice versa. Cyril Ramaphosa, 55, trade union leader-turned politician-turned millionaire, is now a member of the new 86-member ANC national executive committee, and there are persistent reports that he will play his hand shortly. A problem is that he has kept a low profile for so long that when he addressed a township audience recently he had to be introduced.
Phosa, 55, was a "struggle lawyer" and underground campaigner for the ANC. He fell out with Mbeki 10 years ago when he was preparing to challenge Zuma for the ANC deputy presidency. In 2001 he, Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa were accused by Mbeki's security minister of plotting to oust Mbeki (Nelson Mandela apparently intervened to quash the allegation). He has an honorary doctorate in law from Boston university, speaks eight languages, and is a published poet in English and Afrikaans. Motlanthe, 58, who keeps a low profile and presents himself as a moderate, is a former general secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers. He belongs to the ANC's "old school."
If the plan to sidetrack Zuma is approved, it will be implemented by the "top six" who are at the head of the 80-member NEC. The "top six" are:Jacob Zuma - president; Kgalema Motlanthe - deputy president; Baleka Mbete - national chairperson; Gwede Mantashe - secretary general; Thandi Modise - deputy secretary general; Matthew Phosa - treasurer general. (Mantashe is also national chairperson of the SA Communist Party. Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki are ex-officio "top six" members).
Zuma's main backers have been the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu, with 1.8 million affiliated members) and the South African Communist Party (50,000 paid-up members), but mostly these two organisations see him only as a convenient catalyst who brought about the downfall of Thabo Mbeki. Cosatu leaders are openly critical of him. Not unexpectedly, Zuma gives the impression these days of a high flier on the run.
More enthusiastic support has come from the ANC Youth League, but the motives of some of their leaders appear mainly to see the Mbeki gravy train disembark so that they can clamber aboard the Zuma gravy train.
The "sidetrack" Zuma plan can succeed fully only if Zuma assents to it. Here Zuma has to re-examine his support base. His popularity has slipped in the polls: an urban survey in April in seven metropolitan areas put him at 36 percent, one point below Mbeki's disastrous fall to 37 percent in the same month.
The ANCYL would rally behind Zuma, but its new president Julius Malema this week stormed into the ring declaring, "We are prepared to die for Zuma. We are prepared to take up arms and kill for Zuma." The Democratic Alliance has laid a charge against Malema for his inflammatory remarks. As Zuma's allies say about the ANCYL - with friends like these, who needs enemies? Zuma himself has felt forced to warn that the ANC does not want "hooligans" in its ranks. It might be more effective to prescribe anti-testosterone medication for the ANCYL.
Zuma's main support base would turn out to be KwaZulu-Natal, where eight million Zulu-speakers constitute the most populous ethnic group in the country. Recent reports say almost all Zulus are pro-Zuma. In the 1990s Zuma, then ANC deputy president, was despatched by Mbeki to settle the bloody, decade-long conflict between the Zulu-based Inkatha Freedom Party and the ANC, and he succeeded. To revive tribal politics now, would pit the Zulus against the rest of South Africa, and while Zuma is a populist and, in some ways, an unpredictable leader, even he would find such a prospect daunting.
If Zuma turns down the "sidetrack" deal, the "serious minded" in the ANC nevertheless could go ahead and install their own president, but this would inflame Zuma followers. Even if Zuma assents to the deal, his real problem will be to get his followers to accept it. They could go berserk, stranded on a platform for a gravy train that would never arrive.
Zuma seems to be groping at the moment. He signed a letter jointly with Mbeki calling on ANC supporters to avoid aggressive action. One interpretation of this bizarre move has been that Zuma has cut adrift from the left. Cosatu secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi has called the joint Mbeki-Zuma move as ostrich-like. It is difficult to see what Mbeki can offer Zuma, but both seem to have agreed that in the changeover to a "new ANC," there will be no gleichschaltung in which Mbeki-ites are thrown out of political and public office.
Writing in Business Day Karima Brown says it cannot be ruled out that Zuma "might be in the process of making a deal with the old ANC elite". If this is true, she observes, the delegates at Polokwane "are being sold out on a grand scale."
If the Mbeki camp survives the ANC changeover, and Zuma is at loggerheads with the "top six," there will be very little patronage left for Zuma to dispense to his followers. Reassuring his foot soldiers that their campaigning for him over the last three years had not been in vain would require the skills of an illusionist.
The "sidetrack" deal would have to be struck fairly soon because of South Africa's general elections next year; and more immediately, the countrywide conferences in July at which candidate lists will be drawn up for the provinces and the National Assembly. Mantashe expects strife, even some "chaos,' and warns of disciplinary action and even expulsions. Enforcement of "sidetracking," if unavoidable, could create a serious hurdle.
The election of a new national president to replace Mbeki will take place when the 400-member National Assembly meets after next April's general elections and its MPs vote for the candidate of their party's choice. At present, the ANC commands almost three-quarters of the 400 votes. Most likely, this huge majority will drop as disgruntled voters stay away from the polls, or join other political groups, and new opportunities open up for the existing opposition in parliament. But the ANC expects to be returned with a substantial Assembly majority - and with this majority it will elect the national president.
Making sure that ANC MPs vote for the "right" candidate will require skills that combine diplomacy with coercion. Under the country's electoral system of proportional representation, parties draw up lists of their provincial and National Assembly candidates - and the earlier an ANC member is placed on the list as a prospective MP or provincial councillor, the better his/her chances of election are. In practice, party bosses wield considerable influence over the compilation of lists. This is why Mantashe says July is the blood-and-guts season. Clearly, the ANC has no other choice than to bite the bullet.
All this implies that by the end of July the country will know whether Zuma has accepted this deal or rejected it.
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