If Zuma were a share

If Zuma were a share and you had told me to buy, buy, buy a year ago, I would have thought you were crazy and spent all my money speculating on the blue-chip “Tokyo” or the possible new listing “Ramaphosa” instead. Perhaps that is both equally an indication that Jacob Zuma’s political recovery has been nothing short of a meteoric miracle and that I would probably lose my shirt dabbling on the JSE.

To say that I danced and sang with joy and scuttled off to the cupboard to find my “100% JZ” T-shirt when he won his vote to lead the ANC would be a lie. I am wary and suspicious of all politicians and can’t understand why so many other people are not. As it became inevitable that he would win and regardless of the fact that the process of his election was convincingly and unerringly democratic, albeit with a fair dose of colourful “football-esque” theatrics that must have left a few Africa-watchers muttering their disapproval, I found myself nibbling my bottom lip and began to ponder what the change meant for all of us in South Africa.

Many avid followers of “Polokwane” pounced on the fact that the election process was democratic. I agree. That it certainly was, although the vocal and angry opposition to using modern voting technology to ensure the accuracy of the count was a little confusing since everybody knows computers have no political affiliation while human counters most certainly do. Perhaps a computer count with a manual check next time would be the answer, guys, especially considering the partisan nature of the election and the stories of vote-buying (vote-counter-buying?) going on before the elections. Right now we have sent the message that we don’t believe in technology to the rapidly advancing, technologically dominated world of which we so want to be a part. Not good image projection, really.

That said, I would expect an important election in the ruling party to be at the very least democratic in a democracy and hopefully transparent too. Transparency is where I feel a little let down here. Two campaigners and we had no public campaign debates, no radio interviews or jousting on air, and no official stances on any major issues. Hence my real reason for not jumping for joy — we really don’t know what to expect at all. It’s like a blind date! Sure, the ANC is at pains to stress that policy is not made by the individual, but any leader will put his weight behind certain issues, add his personal twist, and there it would help to know what JZ is all about. We all know what Mbeki personally added to the mix and it was hugely significant in the overall analysis of poorly applied ANC policy in many key areas.

It would also help in general if candidates told the public what they stand for, put their proverbial head on a block and tell us all what they hope to achieve for us so that they can be judged against something, benchmarked against promises. Not much to ask, since we pay their salaries and fund their fancy state visits on our behalf. The Americans, supposed leaders in the field of democracy, spend years debating in public so you know exactly what you are getting on voting day. And that’s just to put their candidates forward from each party. They then have party elections, and another year of debating and campaigning between the elected ones to leave the public in no doubt on where they stand. So, in the end all we have on JZ, soon to be our new state ~~employee~~ president, are the clues left scattered around the recent political landscape and, to be honest, they are less than impressive and not exactly the kind of stuff you want to proudly announce to the world.

The ANC has chosen, as its leader out of all possible people, a guy with little formal education who has been tried for rape, has been part of a “generally corrupt” relationship with a convicted fraudster, sings the catchy but fairly divisive and inflammatory Bring Me My Machine Gun every chance he gets and is currently under investigation in connection with possible corruption charges. In fact, he may still be embroiled in a court case or even in jail when our next elections come rolling around, where he is supposed to win the top job. Those are the only clues he has left for us, his curious public, to what we should expect from his presidency. No wonder people inside and outside of South Africa are a touch sceptical!

So, not a great start for JZ, but let’s not judge him on his education; apartheid was largely to blame there, no doubt, and many a smart and successful man never finished school and taught himself what he needed to know in order to take on the world. To be fair again, he beat the rape charges and has not been convicted of anything to date. In fact, the whole nasty business could quite plausibly have been part of a plot to ruin his career that backfired ever so horribly on its perpetrators. In addition, the meaning and relevance of songs like Umshini Wami change over time, so let’s not take that one literally as a call to arms and start building bunkers either, but rather read it as a nostalgic journey back to the liberation days when JZ made his name. Add to this the fact that he brokered the Rwanda peace talks and bothered to flit off to the US to pitch to the Americans before sweeping into Polokwane, and the man suddenly doesn’t look quite as bad on paper.

So, giving the poor fellow the benefit of the doubt under the circumstances and wiping his messy little slate clean, we are once again left with very few clues to what a Zuma presidency would bring to South Africa. All we hear is that he is popular, may be tough on crime and is said to be a man of the people. That, I presume, is why everybody has pounced on the democratic nature of the party election as the hugely positive event — there is simply nothing else to be said at this point. We will all have to wait and see what we get.

Purely for interest’s sake, a simple contrasting example: Russia recently elected its incumbent to the hot seat, one Dmitry Medvedev. He is said to be a brilliant lawyer (he has a PhD in law from Leningrad State University and has co-authored a university textbook on civil law), successfully managed the state-owned Russian energy giant Gazprom since 2000, taking it forward in a big way, is strong on economic reform and green issues, has had an exemplary corporate career and has never been accused or convicted of anything. Russia’s foreign relations have already improved just on the news of his election. His policies are also centrally decided, but he has clear statements of where he stands floating around out there — he can be judged on what he has promised. He has 63% of the Russian people solidly behind his appointment. He does not sing about anything in public — let alone the AK-47 his country famously created — but is musically inclined and does listen to hard rock such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

Why Russia, you might ask? It might be interesting to consider that Russia’s issues at home are not dissimilar to ours and Medvedev and Zuma will be facing many of the same challenges. The Russians are fighting severe poverty after their conversion from communism to capitalism, there is a huge gap between the haves and have-nots, they are trying to grow their economy to catch up with the global leaders, they have a huge HIV problem, organised crime virtually rules the place and they also used to call each other “comrade” — although realising the multiple failings of communism, they seem to have moved on there.

Any of that sound familiar?

Sure there are many, many differences as well, but the point is that Russia chose a Mandela with an unblemished record to lead them, represent them as a nation, grow their image and tackle their problems — and we chose Zuma. Only time will tell who chose wisely, but in a world that marches forward at an ever-increasing pace, the wrong choice could be the difference between a winning or losing nation.

If Zuma were a share at this point, would you buy or sell?