JAUNDICED EYE

The fateful political trajectories of a president and his nemesis

Politics is a fickle business. The humble can be exalted in a trice and, as quickly, then find themselves again face down in the dirt.

Just ask that previously obscure African National Congress backbencher, Des Van Rooyen. At the tail end of one week in December he was catapulted by President Jacob Zuma — reportedly at the behest of JZ’s wheeling and dealing Gupta cronies — into the important job of finance minister. 

By the beginning of the following week he had been fired, earning forever the mocking sobriquet, 'Weekend Special' Van Rooyen. It was scant consolation, following upon this humiliation, then to be given as pacifier the trifling portfolio of co-operative governance.

For while envy and dislike are realities that politicians have to deal with, ridicule is trickier to negotiate. Sniggers are easily fatal to the reputational gravitas that every politician covets. 

Similarly, last week delivered a stark study of contrasts in the fortunes of South Africa’s first citizen and an unexpectedly mettlesome protector of the rights of the ordinary citizen. At the exact moment that President Jacob Zuma, possibly now the most widely despised political figure in SA, hit a new low, his nemesis, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, reached the pinnacle of her popularity.

Last Friday was Madonsela’s final day of her term in office. In the days prior, the media was filled with glowing tributes to a woman whose dignity and determination made her a beacon of hope in a country that is increasingly divided, depressed, and angry.

It is easy, in the excess of warm, emotional fuzziness that has marked her departure, to forget that her initial appointment was not auspicious. The office of Protector, was established in 1996 along with a raft of other constitutional mechanisms, to guard against the predictable inclination of government — any government — to abuse its powers and subvert democracy. 

The office was given carte blanche to investigate any aspect of state affairs or administration claimed to be improper or “to result in any impropriety or prejudice”. Madonsela’s predecessors, however, had been uninspiring, ANC rubber stamped not because they would exercise vigorously their powers for the common weal but because they were considered safe hands that would reliably prioritise party interests.

The office had a mediocre reputation and was essentially a glorified version of a corporate complaints department. And as with every company ombud, all involved understood the unwritten rules: investigate, but not too deeply; rectify, but not too radically. Above all, blame is always deflected down the managerial hierarchy, never upwards.

Consequently, public expectations were modest. There was so little interest that in 2009 — the year that Madonsela was appointed and coincidentally the same year that Zuma pulled off the audacious act of regicide that shoehorned him into the presidency — Parliament initially did not get sufficient interest for the Protector job and had to re-advertise to drum up an adequate slate of candidates. 

Madonsela emerged unspectacularly from a parliamentary process that was as lacklustre and passionless as the most recent one, the choice of her successor Advocate Busisiwe Mkhwebane, was spirited and robustly contested.

At the time, media commentary was muted. Madonsela was, after all, a woman, which made for assumptions that were patronisingly patriarchal but, as time would prove, totally erroneous. 

If Madonsela’s reputation was in 2009 at its nadir, that of Zuma was at its zenith. It would be downhill from that moment of his ascent to the top job, applauded by the same ANC leadership elite much of which now excoriates him and calls for his sacking. 

This crossing of trajectories is almost Shakespearean in its scope. The fates of two of the most important figures in our politics became inextricably intertwined, with the defining moment being her report into wasteful state expenditure upon Zuma’s private home at Nkandla. 

Zuma’s miscalculation over Nkandla was to assume, as had most people, that this wisp of a woman would be, if not biddable, at least easily browbeaten. Madonsela was hounded, abused and threatened but remained resolute.

And she was vindicated when the nation's highest court not only endorsed the way she had exercised her powers but also rebuked Zuma for violating the Constitution and betraying his oath of office. 

It is then entirely fitting that the final scene of their star-crossed relationship was last week again in a court of law, with the president interdicting Madonsela’s report into claims of “state capture” by his controversial cronies. For the moment, Zuma stands triumphant and Madonsela, perforce, exits stage left with her term of office completed. 

But in any classical tragedy it is the hubris of the protagonist that ultimately causes his destruction. The other actors, even the most important of them, are only instruments to trigger that self-immolation. 

It may be too much to hope that Zuma’s political exit, too, is imminent. But while South Africa groans under his ruinous fury, as he lashes out against enemies real and imagined, for the moment hope is all we have. Thank you for that, Thuli.

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