The Zuma conundrum

The Mail & Guardian, in its fabulous article “Scramble to secure a Zuma presidency”, sets out the challenges facing those who would convert the ANC president’s party leadership into a national presidency. In doing so, they capture not only why the “Zuma faction” are taking the measures they are, but also the impact this is having on the country.

Indeed, if you have read the article it will become apparent why one of our best crime fighting organisations — the Scorpions — have to close down, why the judiciary has been under attack and the National Prosecuting Authority is coming under relentless pressure.

Organs of the state and our entire criminal justice system under immense pressure at a time when crime is at horrendous levels and all of this driven by the political in-fighting between the two factions of the ANC.

It has also become apparent that the Zuma faction are becoming concerned at the possibility that the charges will not be withdrawn. This would leave them with amnesty or legislation designed at protecting Zuma up until and during his presidency. Amnesty is problematic because it means the admission of wrongdoing, while legislation would be seen as the ANC using its parliamentary majority to engineer an escape.

Tony Leon, the former Democratic Alliance leader, outlined the importance of a unified ANC to the economy and prosperity of South Africa during a keynote address to Microsoft’s Partner Summit in Durban.

To my mind there can be no doubting that a united ruling party would reduce tension across the country, restore confidence and allow the government to start tackling the areas of importance to this country — for starters, poverty and crime. That is why I have been calling on South Africans to forget about principles and start looking for solutions.

That is not to say that the opposition don’t have a mountain of ammunition to throw at the ANC during the next election. Read back through this blog and the list of their failures is endless. That does not detract however from the fact that they are the government and will be the government after the next election. South Africa needs a government focused on the issues facing this country rather than using the country and the state machinery to run an internal civil war.

My suggestion was to bring in the opposition parties to negotiate a deal with the ANC and the government. Zille, De Lille, Holomisa and Dr Mulder have proven themselves to be leaders of integrity who are more than capable of protecting the country, including the ANC, against themselves. Lest we forget, the Zuma faction believe that this was a politically motivated prosecution and should they secure the presidency, we run the risk of them turning on the “Mbeki faction” rather than concentrating on getting on with the job at hand.

I am not married to my suggestion on how to defuse the situation and would love to hear the people of South Africa putting forward their own ideas on how to resolve this problem. My view however, is that strict adherence to principles, be it in terms of the legal position or on questions of morality, while desirable, is not only unfeasible but dangerous.

We cannot ignore what is happening on the ground and hope that if we cling to a rock the storm will pass and we can swim to safety. We need a boat that can help us ashore before we get struck by lightning. What type of vessel would be suitable is open to suggestions — that we need it cannot be in doubt.

When we dealt with Zimbabwe I was relentless in my attacks on Mugabe and the Zanu-PF.

When a deal became a possibility I shelved my own desire to see the perpetrators of crimes against humanity prosecuted in order to see an urgent compromise reached. Why? Because there are five million people on the brink of starvation and strict adherence to principles could bring about a genocide of monumental proportions.

It is irrelevant to those starving people how they arrived at that point. I attributed it to South Africa’s quiet diplomacy allied to Chinese and Russian complicity with an elitist regime, but is that of any importance? If an imperfect solution is reached which starts Zimbabweans back on the road to recovery and rescues those people, what is my ego in the scheme of that?

In the case of South Africa, the government and ruling party have backed themselves into a corner, playing a dangerous internal political game. That’s the reason we have the problem but this is not a game of chess where to capture the king wins the game.

Capture the king in this game and all hell will break loose.