Zunami! The South African elections of 2009, edited by Roger Southall and John Daniel, Johannesburg, Jacana Media, 2009, 300 pp., £14.95, ISBN 9781770097223
Ironically, the meteoric rise of Jacob Zuma in the South African political firmament began in mid-2005 when his financial advisor, Schabir Shaik, was convicted of corruption in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) launched a corruption case against Zuma for his role in a massive arms deal in the 1990s. Shortly thereafter, then-President Thabo Mbeki dismissed Zuma from his position as Deputy President, and towards the end of 2005 Zuma was charged with raping an HIV-positive woman. In 2006 Zuma was acquitted of rape, and he went on to defeat Mbeki in a fierce battle for presidency of the party at the African National Congress (ANC) 52nd national congress in Polokwane in 2007. Another break for Zuma came in September 2008, when Judge Chris Nicholson found that the executive branch had interfered in the NPA's case against Zuma, amounting to a political conspiracy against him. The National Executive Committee of the ANC promptly recalled Mbeki from office, replacing him with Kgalema Mothlante as interim president. In a furious response, dissidents loyal to Mbeki broke away from the ANC to form a new party that came to be named Congress of the People (Cope) that moved quickly to challenge the ANC in the April 2009 elections. Despite Cope's assault the ANC won 65.9% of the votes, catapulting Zuma into the presidency with a substantial majority – albeit 3.8% lower than in 2004.
The 2009 national and provincial elections form the focus of Zunami! Following an introductory chapter by Roger Southall on the context of the 2009 elections, the volume includes analyses of trends in party support and voting behaviour since 1994 (Schulz-Herzenberg); the electoral system (February); the ANC's election campaign (Butler); Cope (Booysen); Cope vs the ANC in the Eastern Cape (Cherry); the Democratic Alliance (Jolobe); the Inkatha Freedom Party (Francis); two chapters on smaller parties (Heÿn and Petlane); gender and the 2009 elections (Hassim); the media (Duncan); a summary of national and provincial electoral outcomes (Daniel and Southall); and a concluding chapter by John Daniel.
Focused primarily on the political system, the book provides a useful overview of the 2009 elections and the state of political parties nearly twenty years after the unbanning of the ANC, the South African Communist Party and the Pan-Africanist Congress. For this reviewer, the chapters that stand out are those that go beyond accounts of political parties and election results to provide a deeper analysis of this profoundly contentious period in South African politics. One of these is Janet Cherry's essay on the battle between the ANC and Cope in the Eastern Cape. In addition to the varied dynamics in different regions of the province, she illuminates the contradictory position in which Cope found itself in relation to the ANC in the course of attempting simultaneously to tap into and depart from the Congress tradition. Shireen Hassim offers some important insights into the profoundly gendered (and sexualised) character of political contestation around the 2009 elections – a crucial topic that cries out for closer attention.1 Of considerable significance as well are Jane Duncan's observations on the lack of depth in media coverage, and how this served the interests of the dominant parties.
The term ‘Zunami’ was coined in the context of the Polokwane conference, when the extent and intensity of popular support for Jacob Zuma was powerfully on display – catching many of the pundits who pronounce on South African politics by surprise. Since then, however, the mainstream media and academia have devoted remarkably little attention to the question of popular support for Zuma.
Despite its provocative title, Zunami! does not move us very far beyond the ‘manipulated mindless masses’ model that pervades the mainstream media. In a chapter that begins to raise the question of support for Zuma, Anthony Butler points to a coalition of the discontented, including the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the South African Communist Party (SACP), Umkhonto weSizwe veterans, and provincial leaders on the losing side of ANC patronage. He also identifies ‘branch-level discontent about the monopolisation of patronage opportunities by incumbents, poor service delivery, and the general high-handedness and arrogance that characterised the higher reaches – or even the middling one – of Mbeki's administration’ (p. 69).
While these and other forces operating at the level of leadership are undoubtedly important, the question of widespread popular support for Zuma requires far deeper analysis, especially in light of ongoing municipal rebellions. Given the widespread liberal disdain for Zuma and his followers, it is hardly surprising that the mainstream media have failed to engage these questions. Yet, however critical the independent left may be of Zuma, they ignore such issues at their peril.