On 19 December 2012, delegates at the African National Congress's (ANC's) 53rd National Conference in Mangaung re-elected President Jacob Zuma to the party's presidency, presenting him with an overwhelming victory over his only challenger, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe. They followed this up by defeating large swathes of Motlanthe's supporters in the elections for the party's National Executive Committee. As at the party's Polokwane conference in December 2007, when he had unseated Thabo Mbeki as the party's leader, Zuma emerged triumphant.
Fast-forward to a year later, to the public memorial for Nelson Mandela held at the FNB stadium outside Soweto (10 December 2013). Despite the unseasonably cold and wet weather, the event was well attended by a large crowd eager to pay their respects to the iconic founder of South African democracy. A generous mood prevailed, and there were to be loud cheers for former Presidents Thabo Mbeki and F.W. de Klerk, and even louder cheers for US President Barack Obama. But when Jacob Zuma appeared, and when he stood up to deliver his own eulogy, he was to be humiliated before a global audience on his own turf. He was met with loud hoots of derision, boos echoed around the stadium and his speech had to be delivered against an unceasing noisy backcloth of scorn and raillery (it being of little comfort that similar treatment was dished out to G.W. Bush). True to form, after the event, ANC spin doctors lashed out at the protestors as orchestrated by just a small group of malcontents – yet failed to convince anyone who bothered to listen that the noisy embarrassment of Zuma was not a reflection of widespread popular sentiment, as much within the ANC as without.
Reverses in the popularity of political leaders are nothing new, and many fall in public esteem rapidly. From this perspective, Zuma's fall from grace was far from exceptional, especially when it is acknowledged that Mandela's passing had occurred against a background of acute and enduring economic crisis. Highlighted by a downward spiralling of the rand (partly a result of global factors, but more immediately a response to the Marikana disaster in August 2012), the faltering economy was characterised by a slump in inward investment, alarming levels of consumer indebtedness and rising food prices alongside South Africa's perpetual accompaniments of obscene levels of inequality, unemployment and poverty for the mass of the population. Even if Zuma's stewardship was manifestly inept, he could reasonably have claimed that the gods had turned against him. But if they had, they in turn could claim they had had good reason to do so: Why, they might have asked, had the ANC chosen to re-elect a president so deeply mired in scandal, let alone one whose competence in overseeing the daily affairs of government was so questionable? How come the ANC had endorsed its support for a president who had so manifestly misused state power to evade facing multiple charges of corruption around the 1998 arms deal? Who was notorious for his sexual indiscretions? Who had seemingly used his office to enrich his family, friends and cronies? And most particularly, who was currently at the epicentre of a highly publicised furore about the diversion of official funds to build himself an over-the-top palace amidst his poverty stricken rural followers at Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal? (Calland 2013; Southall 2011).
At one level, we need to return to the manner in which Zuma had managed to mobilise popular support within the ANC amongst a ‘coalition of the aggrieved’ in the lead-up to Polokwane, for many of the factors which led to his victory then similarly obtained at Mangaung five years later (Southall 2009). Yet much water had passed under the bridge since then, with Zuma's behaviour in power serving to alienate many amongst his original support, let alone amongst society more generally. So what needs to be explained is how in these circumstances Zuma had managed to retained his popularity within the ANC – or at least, amongst a majority of those who mattered in the party? How was it that he had so easily sidestepped the condemnation of many distinguished critics, some of them (like Pallo Jordan) within the party, who argued that he had brought the ANC to an historic low, and that he had become the worst president in the ANC's history?
To answer these questions we need to turn to a careful analysis of the dynamics of the ANC in the lead-up to Mangaung. In particular, we need to isolate three particular factors: first, the manner in which Zuma had maintained his control of the party machinery; second, the lack of a viable alternative candidate prepared to challenge him; and lastly, the firm grip he had ensured over the security forces.
Control over the party
Above all, Zuma – the man who dislodged Thabo Mbeki largely because he was the only major figure within the party with the courage and desperation to stand against him – had not made his predecessor's mistake of ignoring and alienating the party. As the years went by, Mbeki had built his authority upon the status and office of the Presidency, in effect asserting its hegemony over the party. When, in 2005 he had dismissed Zuma from his post as state Deputy President following court proceedings that indicated that he had been in a corrupt relationship with Schabir Shaik (his financial advisor who had been central to the Arms Deal), the party's National Executive Committee had taken its revenge by refusing to dismiss Zuma from his post as deputy president of the party. This had given Zuma the platform upon which to campaign not only against the corruption charges brought against him by the National Prosecuting Authority but for the party presidency (while denying that he was doing so). It was then that he began to establish his control over what the ANC, in effect, had become since taking power in 1994: a ‘party machine’, a structure which, above all, had assumed responsibility for ‘deploying’ people into state positions at national, provincial and local level (For more detail, see Southall 2013, 293–326).
The ANC, the party of liberation, had steadily transformed itself into a jobs agency, leveraging people into positions of state which gave them salaries and access to the ability to allocate political goods, notably tenders to suitably politically aligned businesses. By posing as Mbeki's victim, as the champion of those alienated by the then President's paranoia or distrust, as well as the saviour of the economically oppressed, Zuma had sung and danced his way to the Presidency and to the control of the party machine. Hence it was that, immediately after Polokwane, before the ANC took the further step in September 2008 of requiring Mbeki to step down from the state Presidency, there was a debate about ‘two centres of power’ (state versus party), in which Zuma activists proclaimed the supremacy of the ANC over the head of state. Unsurprisingly, little was heard about this notion following Zuma's accession to the top job in April 2009 (Kgalema Motlanthe replacing Mbeki as an interim state President following the latter's de facto dismissal).
The battle at Polokwane had been bitter and vicious. Mbeki, cocooned by myopic advisers within State House, had awakened too late to the threat posed by Zuma's campaigning. Even so, he had managed to take 40% of the vote at the Congress, as his appointees and supporters sought to reverse the Zuma tide. But once the waves had crashed over them, many had been swept away, as the Zuma faction ejected them from party positions, high and low, and terminated contracts held by Mbeki-ites across the state and parastatal organisations. Some significant Mbeki appointees (like Finance Minister Trevor Manuel) were retained so as not to sink the leaky ANC boat, but over time (especially after the Zuma's ascension to the state Presidency after the April 2009 election), they were increasingly marginalised. Meanwhile, Zuma asserted his hegemony over the party machinery in a way that Mbeki never had: whereas Mbeki had asserted his authority as party president to appoint provincial premiers, a pro-Zuma proclamation at Polokwane had reasserted the authority of party provincial executives to deploy candidates to those posts. Although this was presented as empowering the party over the state (which it did), it also strengthened the position of Zuma at the centre of a web of patronage in a post-Mbeki interlude where his supporters carried all before them. Over time, the strength and elasticity of this web was tested, for as the ANC plunged further into a morass of corruption and ‘tenderpreneurship’, intense struggles for political goods divided Zuma-ites one from another. Yet on the whole, the web – and Zuma's role at its centre – held. This was to be demonstrated in the electoral battle in the run-up to Mangaung.
The ANC constitution lays down that the local branches of the party elect 90% of the delegates to the party's five-yearly Congress, the remaining 10% being elected by the Women's, Youth and Veterans' Leagues and the provincial congresses. In the run-up to a Congress, the branches have to hold their own nomination conferences, electing their representatives to their provincial congresses, which then have the task of nominating individuals as their preferred candidates for the party's top six positions. ANC tradition lays down that candidates do not campaign for party position – they merely respond to the will of the people if, come the national congress, they are elected as president, deputy-president, secretary-general or whatever. Practice of course is different.
Jacob Zuma campaigned energetically for the party presidency in 2007 whilst denying that he was doing so. In the run-up to Mangaung, his supporters campaigned equally energetically to assert their control over the branches, and hence claim the right to elect their candidates to the provincial and national congresses. Indeed, their pre-eminence was magnified by the campaign that the party undertook to achieve a membership of 1 million to celebrate its centenary – for this resulted in the creation of new branches, most of them pro-Zuma, with the most notable growth in party membership taking place in KwaZulu-Natal, the President's home territory. Yet stories about how the party's ostensibly democratic practices were grossly manipulated abound: massive amounts of money were rumoured to have changed hands to cement the Zuma alliance; meetings were packed by party factions, with their opponents often physically excluded; factional killings reached a new high; and at least one party provincial congress descended into violence between rival supporters of Zuma and Kgalema Motlanthe, who was widely touted as the one candidate who might conceivably displace him. Of course, branches had to be in good standing, and disputes had to be adjudicated by a credentials committee, but with Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe in charge of the process, this did not present an undue problem for the incumbent.
When nominations for party president closed on 30 November 2012, Zuma received the votes of 2259 delegates from just six provinces, more than the 2251 he needed to secure re-election at Mangaung, with three provinces late in declaring their results. Given that he was set to gain more votes (even if only a substantial minority) from the three provinces yet to declare, and that meanwhile, the ANC Women's and Veterans' Leagues were strongly behind him, with the Youth League divided, Zuma was already home and dry before he even arrived in Mangaung.
The lack of an alternative candidate
Mbeki had alienated so many within the party in the run-up to Polokwane that Zuma had been able to position himself as a candidate who could defeat him. Consequently, despite the fact that he had no political programme except saving himself from prosecution, he presented himself as the champion of the left, thereby securing the backing of the Congress of the South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), both of which were in formal alliance with the ANC. Simultaneously, he attracted the support of, notably, the Youth League, at that time led by Julius Malema who, with his customary flamboyance, had proclaimed on one occasion that he would ‘kill for Zuma’ (Forde 2011). Together, COSATU and the SACP, alongside the Youth League, provided the organisational muscle to secure election of favoured candidates to party branches, ultimately enabling Zuma to win at Polokwane (Webster 2008).
Come 2012, Zuma had lost the support of Julius Malema and his majority following within the Youth League. During the run-up to Polokwane, Zuma had condoned outrageous statements and unruly behaviour by Malema and the Youth League, and during his first three years in office had continued to enjoy their backing. However, by 2011, Malema's lack of discipline and his disregard for party policy had come to constitute a threat to Zuma's supremacy, and the two had fallen out – this much aided by numerous revelations about the Youth League leader's alleged deep involvement in corrupt dealings and tenderpreneurship in his home province of Limpopo. After a long and complicated process, Malema was eventually to be expelled from the ANC in March 2012 and is now facing multiple enquiries into his dubious dealings by, amongst others, the South African Revenue Service (Southall 2013, 306–311).
Although Malema's control over the Youth League executive was to result in the latter refusing to replace him as its president, it was thereafter facing an uphill battle to restore his legitimacy and authority. Its game plan became to secure an anti-Zuma majority at Mangaung in order to overturn Malema's expulsion from the party. Yet this fell victim to three obstacles. First, a significant minority of Youth Leaguers had been alienated by Malema, and now looked to Zuma to help them replace his followers. Second, they lacked sufficient wider support within the party, for although Malema had some powerful backers, his capricious behaviour meant that it did not follow that to be anti-Zuma was be pro-Malema. Third, while the Youth League now congregated behind Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe as the most likely candidate available to defeat Zuma at Mangaung, Motlanthe declined to respond to their love-making. Indeed, Motlanthe did not indicate until the very eve of the conference that he would accept nomination to run for the Presidency.
Zuma thus won at Mangaung because there was no other candidate willing to declare against him – right up till the very last moment. In this situation, he had been aided by party rules, which forbade provinces to declare their nominations before 30 November. In practice, this meant that while he used his office and the resources it provides to campaign throughout the country (while, as ever, denying that this was anything to do with the leadership contest), it hamstrung his would-be opponents. As a result, only one candidate, Black Empowerment mogul turned Minister of Human Settlement, Tokyo Sexwale, openly declared his ambition, but he lacked the popular support. So this left Motlanthe as the only potentially viable alternative candidate. His credentials were strong. He had joined the underground ANC, been jailed on Robben Island, been deployed to the National Union of Mineworkers, succeeded Cyril Ramaphosa as its Secretary-General when the latter left to take up the same position for the ANC, and in turn followed Ramaphosa as Secretary-General of the ANC when the latter had moved into business. From there, Motlanthe had been elevated to the deputy presidency when Zuma had become party president, and then became interim President of the country following Mbeki's dismissal. As it has become established practice for the party's deputy president to eventually become president, he thereby came to appear as the natural successor – and likely challenger (Harvey 2012). However, this did not allow for the fact that, for one reason another, Motlanthe continuously eschewed open ambition.
At a time when party culture had been changing, Motlanthe clung to the party ideology that he was a servant of the people, and would only answer their call to serve if he was nominated to do so at Mangaung. So this eminently decent man hung back, easy meat for the highly carnivorous Zuma. The simple route for him would have been to respond positively to Zuma's offers that he continue to serve as his deputy, seemingly easing himself into pole position to succeed as president subsequently. However, for reasons he did not make public, he declined to do so, leaving many to presume that he was unhappy with Zuma's leadership. An alternative option would have been to have informally positioned himself as a candidate and to mobilise support on the ground, but again he declined to do so. In the end, his refusal to declare for anything led to the Zuma camp abandoning him for deputy president in favour of Cyril Ramaphosa, leaving those who wished to back him as a challenger in despair. As a result, when at the last moment he accepted nomination to stand, he did so as a matter of ostensible principle, even while knowing that he would go down to a defeat and probably see himself marginalised. Yet was his decision actually based on principle? Or was it, as his detractors allege, a case of paralysing indecision? If so, the conclusion to be drawn was that while Sexwale had the courage but lacked support, Motlanthe had support without the courage.
But why was it that there was no other challenger to a manifestly failed President? One answer is the ruthlessness with which Zuma had erected his defences.
Zuma's control over the security services
Formally, South African government operates subject to the constitution. However, under ANC rule, constitutional government has come under increasing threat, as deployment of party loyalists to positions has seen the political independence of state institutions eroded. Indeed, the blurring of party and state was to result in the struggle between Mbeki and Zuma being played out quite openly within state institutions in the run-up to Polokwane. Hence it was that, following Mbeki's dismissal, various machinations were to result in the dismissal, on grounds of dubious legality, of the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Vusi Pikoli, who had been driving the corruption charges against Zuma; and pressure placed upon Menzi Simelane, who stepped up to serve in an acting capacity in his place, to drop the corruption charges entirely.
Once in office, Zuma set about the extension of his control over the security services. Key appointments included that of Siyabonga Cwele, who had served under Zuma when the latter had been head of ANC intelligence in exile, as Minister of State Security; and Bheki Cele, who had spearheaded support for Zuma in KwaZulu-Natal before Polokwane, as national police commissioner, with Simelane being confirmed as National Director of Public Prosecutions. In the event, various of these appointments were to run into trouble. Cele became embroiled in a major corruption scandal, and fell out with Zuma when, eventually, the latter had little option but to fire him; and Simelane's appointment was later to be judged by the Supreme Court of Appeal in early December 2011 as irrational, invalid and unconstitutional (given doubts about his integrity aired by a parliamentary commission of inquiry before his appointment). But such blips were overcome by other appointments – the most notorious being that of Lieutenant-General Richard Mdluli, who at the time was facing a murder charge and was caught up in a probe into misuse of secret service finances, as head of the Crime Intelligence Service (CIS). Suffice it to say that, although Mdluli subsequently had to step aside from running the CIS, the charges against him were later withdrawn (officially for lack of evidence), and he has remained a major (if shadowy) figure of power. Overall, there are extensive indications that Zuma has massively extended direct presidential control over the security and prosecution services, and used them in his battle to secure the succession (Holden and Van Vuuren 2011; Forrest and Brummer 2012).
By its nature, such political influence is difficult to verify. However, what cannot be doubted is the rise of fear within ANC ranks of the risks of running foul of a nascent security state. Suspicion is rife amongst even Zuma loyalists that phones are tapped and emails hacked; laptop computers have disappeared in mysterious circumstances; and there is a widespread assumption that leaks to the media regarding alleged corruption, dubious business involvements or factional alignments often emanate from within the intelligence services for political reasons. Further, it is also widely believed that, while revelations of apparent corruption constantly batter the South African public, that prosecution of those accused is politically selective, with the pursuit of Julius Malema by the Revenue and prosecution services being pronounced by his supporters as the leading instance. Whether or not the widespread paranoia is justified, the fact that it exists is suggestive of a culture of fear which is likely to increase if the ANC continues in its determined efforts to secure passage of a General Laws Amendment Bill (which will centralise different intelligence agencies under a single body) and a Protection of Public Information Bill (dubbed the Secrecy Bill by its critics) which, in its present form, will impose massive restrictions upon whistle-blowers, the opposition and the media, and seriously hamper exposure and investigation of corruption.
Zuma as an electoral liability
His return as party leader means that, save divine intervention, Zuma will lead the ANC into the forthcoming 2014 general election. Furthermore, at one level, the party's retention of him in his post will have limited consequences, for such is the ANC's electoral predominance that its return to power is guaranteed before the first vote is cast. It boasts a formidable electoral machine – this will roll behind its man, and Zuma himself will again present himself (and be presented) as the champion of the poor and dispossessed come election time, and the ANC will appear unanimous. Yet appearances can prove misleading, and at time of writing (February 2014), there are signs that Zuma's continuing leadership will prove a liability, contributing to a marked decline in the level of the ANC's performance. In summary form:
Zuma's popularity has taken a battering amongst his previous support, notably as a result of Nkandla. Corruption in South Africa under the ANC has spread like a cancer, but a widespread popular reaction is to direct anger at individual party office-holders and government officials, rather than at the party itself. In Zuma's case, however, the situation is obviously different, for as President he is the embodiment of the party. Try as it might, the party has been unable to dissociate Zuma from the Nkandla and other scandals, nor from the bounty which has flowed to his family and friends. The popular reverence accorded the memory of Mandela for his legacy of selflessness merely reinforces the contrast with his successor, who must fear the extent to which Mbeki is regaining popular regard. Although opinion polls in South Africa need to be interpreted extremely circumspectly, the ANC must be worried that a recent series of them have heralded its declining fortunes, and taken note of a particular poll conducted in the same week as Zuma was booed in Soweto which indicated that 51% of respondents wanted the President to resign over allegations that he had misused public money. Much of the discontent seems to emanate from urban-based members of the lower middle class, potential first-time voters and younger age categories, all of whom the ANC is anxious to please but who express anger at Zuma's lifestyle (Hartley 2013; Merten 2014).
The coalition which propelled Zuma to power, centred around COSATU, the SACP and the Youth League, has fractured along lines of class and interest. Zuma's fall-out with Malema has seen the latter forming the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to challenge the ANC and the labour establishment. Taking advantage of post-Marikana rivalry between the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union and COSATU's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to strike up an alliance with the former, he has cleverly positioned the EFF as the vehicle of the poor and as the agent of radical change. For all that various radical critics depict the EFF as a formation masking a petty-bourgeois programme, they are reluctant to dismiss its potential because of the level of support it has obtained amongst militant segments of the working class. Meanwhile, concerted struggles are taking place within COSATU, notably between the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) and the core of the federation's leadership. Embedded in this contestation is NUMSA's complaint that the COSATU leadership has become distanced from the ground floor, alongside a radical critique of the Tripartite Alliance and the government's endorsement of the National Development Plan. As a result, NUMSA has withdrawn its support from the ANC for the election, a move which will compromise the party's campaigning (although for the moment it is avoiding rushing into the formation of a workers' party) (Marrian 2014).
Although Zuma will continue to enjoy the support of the SACP and the COSATU leaderships, this will lack the thrust of earlier campaigns. Nor will the backing of a post-Malema Youth League provide much value, for it is but a shadow of its former self, led by Zuma appointees with an undoubted eye to post-election rewards. The saving grace for the ANC is that NUMSA remains wary of the EFF, even while coveting its constituency (Marrian 2014).
The Congress of the People, formed by Mbeki-ites in the wake of Polokwane, has proved so inept that its support will collapse from the 7% vote it gained in the election of 2009. In its place, Agang, formed by Mamphele Ramphele, may prove something of a home for disillusioned supporters of the ANC, even if its recent shambolic off-on-and-off-again pact or coalescence with the Democratic Alliance is likely to alienate many within its potential black constituency. Meanwhile, the Gauteng provincial ANC remains largely in control of those who backed Mbeki at Polokwane and Motlanthe at Mangaung. Such eddies and currents render prediction of the outcome of the 2014 election highly perilous, although many believe that the ANC's vote is in danger of falling below 60% of the total vote cast, and that much of the fall-off will be due to the consequences of Zuma's poor leadership. More consequential in the long run however, is the prospect of an increase in the numbers of those within the ANC's historic constituency choosing not to vote. Amongst young people especially, this might sever the link with the party of liberation.
Zuma received the backing of the party apparatchiks at Mangaung because the majority of those in party posts had gained much from his elevation and stood to lose privilege and profit were he to have been defeated. Many of them voiced their continued backing for him in the name of the left, as the standard bearer of the continuing National Democratic Revolution. It is therefore ironic that the consequence of their actions seems destined to be Zuma's handing over of effective daily governmental management to Cyril Ramaphosa, who is in line to become Deputy President and probably a de facto prime minister, much as Mbeki was to Mandela during the latter half of the latter's presidency. In so doing, Zuma would take himself out of the front line, possibly setting himself up for an early retirement if he could parlay a guaranteed stay from future prosecution for corruption. Beyond the personal level, however, the Polokwane champion of the left has paved the path to power of an iconic representative of the post-apartheid corporate elite.