Four years ago, at the height of Jacob Zuma's corruption trial in Pietermaritzburg and while I was serving as a candidate attorney in the same city, a senior ANC official took me aside and desperately confided that Zuma would do to his political opponents what Thabo Mbeki had done to him.
He explained how the trial had made Zuma a bitter man and even more determined to become the next president of South Africa . He told me that Zuma had become such a schemer and so dangerously paranoid that South Africa 's constitutional democracy was likely to be under threat with him at the top.
"He is very cross with comrade Thabo and will not brook any challenge to his presidency. He feels he has gone through enough hell. Under him (Zuma) our democracy is not safe". In hindsight, the words of my ANC friend were shockingly prophetic, for his prediction has now come to pass.
Jacob Zuma is now applying exactly the same tactics for this year's ANC elective conference as applied by Thabo Mbeki not so long ago. With his camp panicking about the recent revolts in mines across South Africa and Malema's tactful use of the Marikana tragedy, Zuma realizes that getting rid of all possible impediments to his re-election is vitally important.
He seems well aware that he has very little to show after four years in power and especially after making all sorts of promises in his election manifesto. Unemployment is fast approaching the 50% mark and South Africa is counted amongst the most unequal societies in the world.
Pertinent issues like land reform and economic freedom remain unaddressed almost two decades after the apartheid regime was dismantled. All of this has been made much worse by Malema's labeling of Mr. Zuma as a dictator and a self-serving politician who is out of touch with the needs of the people and who must go.