There is a scene towards the end of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest when one of the characters declares about another: "She approaches; she is nigh."

The same might be said of Jacob Zuma's 100th day in office.

According to my calculations, Monday, August 17 will mark the man from Inkandla's first century of days in the proverbial hot seat.

Of course the concept of the first 100 days in office as a meaningful marker is an American thing - in particular, it's an American media thing - and so one has to remember what DA parliamentary leader Athol Trollip said recently:

"The first 100 days in office of a new leader ... is a helpful tool for identifying some broader patterns and trends but it is of little help in measuring particulars of leadership or governance (because) it is entirely random and is an entirely inadequate period of time to measure impact. Real change takes much longer to become apparent."

Indeed.

And, when it comes to Zuma's first 100 days, or the first 100 days of whomever might be President of the beloved republic now, I feel like even more of a killjoy than Trollip.

Reflecting on the first 100 days at this particular time in our history, I think of two disparate images.

The first emanates from 20 years ago and it is of the Exxon Valdez, a gigantic oil tanker that spilled about 40 million litres of crude oil into the pristine Prince William Sound off Alaska. As a result, a larger number of people now know about the huge amount of time and space required to stop and/or turn a supertanker.

The second image is of boys at high school opining that "trying to find out anything from that guy is like punching a plastic bag full of water".

The point that I am rather clumsily trying to make is twofold.

The first part is that I have to agree yet again with Trollip (I must be getting soft) that Zuma's prospect of success is "compromised" by 15 years of bad management. I don't agree with Trollip that the situation is entirely the ANC's fault. But I do agree that Zuma has inherited a decade-and-a-half of ineptness (and worse).

This is one hell of a large supertanker to turn around in 100 days.

Second, at the risk of creating an appalling simile salad, I want to suggest that trying to find a direction for the country ("jy moet 'n bietjie rigting kry, troep", the corporals used to scream in the old SADF), and/or trying to get society to retain its shape (a phrase beloved of today's soccer coaches), is like punching a plastic bag full of water.

It is more than difficult. Economically, these are fluid and shapeless times.

Having said all that, what is there left to say about Zuma's first 100 days?

For one thing, he has not been passive. He has created a new Cabinet which is set to make big changes. Zuma has also made a number of other appointments. Not all have been welcomed; some, such as the new commissioner of police, are suspect. But at least Zuma has moved ahead.

Even a cursory visit to any website dealing with Zuma shows just how busy he has been: "Tutu and Zuma bury hatchet"; "Zuma's choice of top judge queried"; "I will make time to visit communities"; and so on.

For another thing, Zuma has been big enough to take responsibility and to apologise - on behalf of the ANC - for a variety of shortcomings. So it seems that at least the Mbeki era of denialism and defensiveness is past.

In brief, Zuma's first 100 days are looking good; it feels as though the supertanker is in the turning circle. But what most people can see is still the same. The ship needs to come round a lot faster.

* Jeremy Gordin is a veteran journalist and author of Zuma: A Biography. This article first appeared in The Daily Dispatch.

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