Part 1
Helen Zille's dilemma with President Jacob Zuma could best be defined as ‘exploding noema'. It is a theory of psychoanalysis, which describes the precise moment when the brain cannot differentiate between perception and reality. In that moment, what should be fails to reconcile with what actually is and inevitably leaves one confused.
The DA leader gave a speech during her party's recent provincial congress in Kwazulu-Natal (see here), in which she launched another of her usual and vicious attacks on the person of the incumbent. In doing so, she managed to add another piece of the puzzle to her ever complex and irrational behaviour where the name of Zuma is concerned.
In her own words, Zille's apparent disorder started "back in 2005 when President Mbeki fired his deputy, Jacob Zuma... Zuma, up until then a prime contender to succeed Mbeki, was effectively knocked out of the race". From this statement, it is clear that the opposition leader was among those who were pronouncing on Zuma's political obituary, under the perception that Mbeki's political machinations had successfully sealed the incumbent's political fate.
It was reported then that some like Patrick Lekota (now of COPE) were unusually jovial on the particular that day - 14th June 2005 - amusing all and sundry in parliament with an extraordinary sense of humor. Alas, reality has since proven otherwise, and Zuma has since overwhelmingly led the pack across the finishing line to the top office in Union Buildings.
A lot happened between 2005 and now, but one of the most revealing of Zille's growing conflict with reason and logic must have been in May 2008, soon after the Constitutional Court issued out a statement regarding Judge Hlophe's alleged interference with their decision on Zuma's challenge of the search and seizure raids.. In the same statement, Chief Justice Pius Langa was unambiguous that "there was no suggestion that any of the litigants [Zuma/NPA/Thint] were involved" in this matter.
But Zille could not resist the urge to ride roughshod over a pronouncement from the highest court in the land, when she publicly defied that statement and challenged Zuma to clear "suspicions" around his involvement in the matter. In doing so, Zille deliberately ignored the reasoning of the Constitutional Court, and managed to simultaneously drag the judicial institution into disrepute, since some began to question whether the court might have been involved in a mischievous political agenda together with Zuma's detractors. Ironically, it is the self-same Zille who now claims to be defending among other ‘the integrity of the judiciary'.
In December 2007, the ANC went to its 53rd National Conference in the small town of Polokwane. It was then that Zuma emerged victorious against his only opponent in the election for the ANC's top job, Thabo Mbeki. It is the outcome of this robust and democratic event which Zille declares a "sham of an election". It interesting that there is no record of any ANC member including those who have since abandoned the party to form COPE has ever questioned the integrity of the Polokwane electoral outcome, but a non-ANC member in the form of Zille knows better. Evidently, she must then be of the perception that Zuma is an illegitimate president of the ANC.
In May 2009, Zille responded to Cosatu Western Cape secretary Tony Ehrenreich's criticism of the all male, mostly white group of MECs she appointed to govern the Western Cape by claiming that "Zuma is a self-confessed womaniser with deeply sexist views, who put all his wives at risk by having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman". How her appointment of an apartheid kind of cabinet links to Zuma remains somewhat elusive among many a rational being.
On 1 November 2008, Zille was among those who gathered in the Sandton Convention Centre, to witness what Patricia de Lille then described as "the breaking down of the ANC". But it was UNISA Vice-chancellor, Barney Pityana, who came out forthright about the real motivation for the gathering when he termed the event "a rejection of leaders who are being charged for corrupt activities" referring to none other than Zuma.
It would therefore be natural, that those who celebrated and applauded the charade, including Zille, must have been painfully annoyed when the ANC nearly mustered a two-third majority in the April 2009 general elections. For many like her, it would seems like the reality of a Zuma presidency is yet to settle in, thus they sometimes conduct themselves as if the country is still in the pre-elections mode.
Part 2
It was the developments that followed the Sandton Convention gathering of ANC's disgruntled members that further propelled Zille close to the edge. According to experts, analysts and commentators, the politics of then suggested that a splinter group in the ANC was by far the best opportunity available for opposition parties to seize power from the nearly century old movement.
Therefore, Zille must have been under pressure from her party to deliver significant results in the following elections. Zuma's corruption charges and the formation of COPE inflated an illusion that the ultimate test for opposition parties had arrived, and failure exploit these developments to maximum capacity would be an indictment on the leadership ability of respective opposition leaders. She had made pompous predictions in the media, which have since proven to be running parallel with reality.
Indeed the DA did manage minimal gains, but it remains unclear as to how much of that gain was due to a court decision to allow registered expatriates to participate in the polls. As it were to be expected, the expatriate vote - constituted mainly of white pessimists who felt that anything less than the exclusive safety they enjoyed during apartheid was not tolerable - overwhelmingly gave the DA a nod at a total of 77%. Furthermore, the number of traditional ANC voters who might have decided to abstain from the elections due to the confusion caused by the departure of members from Mbeki's administration would be another factor to consider with regards to the performance of the opposition.
In essence, one could put forth an argument that Zille failed the DA. Now she's faced with the daunting task of explaining to her supporters the exact reasons why she couldn't bring down Zuma. The party's performance did not justify the risky campaign strategy of the ‘Zuma Gevaar'. One could also safely presume that if indeed the DA is a self-respecting party, the constituency would have demanded answers from Zille in as far as the DA failed to achieve maximum impact. That much could be deduced from the DA leader's comments after a meeting with Zuma in September 2009 when she said: "If you sit one-on-one with Zuma it is difficult not like him...I could run an entire campaign saying Stop Zuma and he will meet you and be warm and affable and friendly. Now it is hard not to like a person like that".
Effectively, Zille was trying to explain to her constituency that the minimal gains of the 2009 election are not due to her leadership shortcomings, but because Zuma's charm was undeniable, and probably the best explanation as to why the ANC overwhelmingly dwarfed the opposition.
In the Kwazulu-Natal speech, she opened up the address by declaring that she is "pleased to say that we [DA] have never been in a better position than we are today". Similarly, her 50th Anniversary speech of the ‘Progressive Party' claims that "The truth is, our project is flourishing" (see here). A question then begs: "Who is Zille trying to convince about the truth? Could this mean that there are some within the DA who believe otherwise?
Further down the speech she tries to justify the ANC's victory to be a result of Zuma's ability "fool [many people] with warmth and affability". Essentially, Zille declares herself a fool for finding Zuma likable in the earlier meeting, but nonetheless she is - out of all the other fools - the fool who has since figured things out.
It therefore becomes blatantly clear that Zille suffers a confusing ‘like-dislike' relationship with Zuma. But the sore part is that her failure to nail Zuma at the polls when the opportunity supposedly presented itself remains an albatross around her neck since it suggests that she might have been the wrong DA leader for the moment. Her legacy would be that she set out to destroy Zuma and failed miserably. Thus Zuma's downfall would be sweet vengeance and a salvation of a legacy that is currently limping with questionable leadership abilities. She confesses that much when she states that unless the DA succeeds in stopping Zuma, "all efforts to grow [the] party would be futile".
But Zille did not only make pompous predictions with regard to the DA chances of success alone. She was also among those who predicted that South Africa was likely to implode during the period between Polokwane and the 2009 general elections. That didn't happen since the transition of power occurred smoothly, defying popularized myths and prejudices about African leadership. One would expect Zille to be applauding the manner in which the Zuma leadership handled the volatile politics of the time instead of advocating for the success of underhanded political tactics.
Behind the mask of a brave and courageous woman, Helen Zille is a scared and desperate little girl, who will clutch at every straw to bring down the man who has since come to define what history would say about her tenure as DA leader. As far as Zille seems to be concerned, ‘what should be' is that Zuma should be in jail serving a corruption sentence and the DA should be the ruling party. But ‘what really is' is that Zuma is the sitting president of the Republic of South Africa and the ANC remains the legitimate voice of the South African majority.
Setumo Stone is a writer, social commentator and youth activist
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