Motlanthe vs Zuma: Better than a coalition government

Weekend newspapers including City Press and Rapport were alleging that the African National Congress had instructed the SABC to feature the ANC president Jacob Zuma more than the national president Kgalema Motlanthe and to make the latter seem less presidential.

If this is true I’d like to meet the genius who came up with it.

Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t the last ANC leadership barney end up with a party called Cope, uncertainty as to whom the party faithful are — as opposed to those lurking in the shadows waiting to join the new party — and enough ongoing court battles and inquiries to last a lifetime?

Maybe I’ve missed something but aren’t the analysts, as you read this, trying to calculate the percentage points the ANC are going to shed at next year’s election as a result of the Mbeki versus Zuma debacle?

What, if I may be so bold, was the point in replacing president Mbeki if not to unify the party and to remove the uncertainty and instability that the party split was occasioning? As things stood, the country had been reeling from scandal to scandal and in desperate need of something or someone to defuse the situation. The ANC needed to get its house in order prior to the elections.

In came President Motlanthe and appointed a new Cabinet which was in the main, welcomed by the people of this country.

Immediately the minister of health started tackling Aids, the ANC NEC and Cabinet indicated a staid approach to the economy and things started to settle down. Of course, Motlanthe dropped a brick on the collective toe in respect of Zimbabwe, but generally things were getting back to normal.

Zuma, in his defence, has been making the all the right noises pre-election, taking on everything from the television our children watch to the state of education. Alliance partners are mumbling about the measures of socialism to be introduced, but to my way of thinking that is long overdue.

Most importantly, the government and the party were doing what they should be doing: ruling and governing.

Into this scenario we now have to factor Cope and a resurgent Democratic Alliance, who are both capable of making inroads into the ANC support base and vastly reducing its majority. The biggest danger however comes from within the ANC itself, with this exercise a case in point.

The best antidote to encroachment from the opposition parties is a government that has a firm hand on the rudder and a finger on the pulse of the electorate. This means a president and a Cabinet firmly in charge of business, making decisions and being seen to make those decisions.

Accordingly, any attempts to play down Motlanthe and the Cabinet is highly counter-productive to the ANC in its efforts to restore its image and create the image of a ruling party that is in charge and under control. Their opponents are the only beneficiaries. The ANC must understand that winning the next election has to be their first priority and the leadership issues secondary to that. Once they have that under control they can start looking at the question of who plays what role, not before.

It’s not the slam dunk they seem to think it is.