Zuma turns into his own worst nightmare

It must be a nightmare for both Jacob Zuma and his fiery supporters in the African National Congress. Before our very eyes the new president is transmogrifying into the old president.

Jacob is becoming Thabo, the man they discarded so discourteously, sans the penchant for the latter’s deep thoughts. But there is the same curious inability to stop popping candy into the maws of monsters, the same paralysis when it comes to implementing nitty-gritty decisions rather than drafting airy-fairy policies.

It is too early to judge whether Zuma’s foray this week to patch together the collapsing unity government in Zimbabwe will be successful. The usual optimistic statements have been made about progress and breakthroughs, but after 10 years of hearing his predecessor proclaim with monotonous regularity the crisis to be resolved, one must be sceptical of presidential wishful thinking.

Nevertheless, there is a world of difference between the Zuma who just two years ago castigated Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe as a repressive dictator who did not know when to step down, and the Zuma who now clutches Mug’s paw like a lovelorn schoolboy. A world of difference between the Zuma who spoke about the “serious political crisis and human tragedy” of Zimbabwe, and the one who now on a British state visit strolls out as opening bat for the ageing dictator, pleading for the lifting of sanctions against the inner circle of the Zanu-PF kleptocracy.

There once was a Zuma who in a barely veiled reference to Mbeki’s “quiet diplomacy” said that it was tragic that there were world leaders who witnessed repression and pretended that it was not happening. A Zuma who warned, “When history eventually deals with the dictators, those who stood by and watched the deterioration of nations should bear the consequences.”

There once was a Zuma who declared the situation in Zimbabwe to be “out of control” and said that that the liberation movement values that the ANC once shared with Zanu-PF were no longer there. “We fought for the right of people to vote, we fought for democracy,” he said.

There once was a Zuma who in 2008 used his Christmas message to the nation to say, “The time for hoping for change must come to an end. Neither the people of South Africa nor the people of Zimbabwe deserve the devastation that the political deadlock is creating. The reported cases of abductions and detentions without trial, tests the very fabric of the liberation we fought for in this region of Africa.”

In those heady days after Mbeki had been ejected, ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe promised that “President Zuma will be more vocal in terms of what we see as deviant behaviour in our neighbours.” But there has been no vocalisation of criticism from Zuma, instead it is all kissy-kissy and make nice.

It is not only on the issue of Zimbabwe that Zuma is turning into an Mbeki clone, despite the two men being so different in temperament and character.

The Mbeki era was characterised by grand schemes, like the African renaissance, which never came to successful fruition because Mbeki was unable to get his ministers and officials to do the hard graft necessary. Similarly, Zuma has frittered away an entire year of what might well be a one-term administration with elaborate planning and policy initiatives, but preciously little implementation.

The key difference between the two men is that Mbeki failed because he could not tolerate any view different from his own. If Zuma fails it will be because he is unable to impose upon his fractious comrades a consistent view of his own, if indeed he is able to formulate one.