They may finally be ousting Jacob Zuma, but the ANC has no dignity left to salvage. By John McKee

Cape Town is thirsty. As its dams dry to acrid desert, negotiation of everyday tasks are fraught. How many litres to shower? How long to let the waste stink before the flush? Yet it is the negotiations over a more far-reaching stink which asphyxiate South Africa. Jacob Zuma, the almost comically corrupt President, faces recall and resignation as the leader of a nation which was once the great hope of Africa. As he begs, bargains and plots his way to remain safe from the 783 – and counting – charges of corruption within the cocoon of the presidency, his time finally appears to have run out. 

ANC Secretary General Ace Magashule announced on Tuesday that Zuma has been recalled by the powerful ANC National Executive Committee, as has one of his predecessors, Thabo Mbeki. (Mbeki’s ousting was puppeteered by none other than Zuma himself.) His recall was confirmed as the ANC parliamentary caucus has scheduled a vote of no confidence to remove him as president on Thursday, if he does not resign by the end of Wednesday. The irony is exceeded perhaps only by the width of the grin we might imagine on Mbeki’s face as he quenched his thirst for revenge, saying, “[the] interests of our country would be best served if indeed Mr Zuma ceased to be President”

Zuma is being ousted by his deputy and successor-elect Cyril Ramaphosa. He was once Mandela’s favoured successor, but was brushed aside by the ANC leadership in favour of Mbeki. Unlike his Robben Island-veteran compatriots, Zuma, a former ANC intelligence chief, eschewed the erudite cosmopolitanism oozed by Mbeki or Ramaphosa. He claimed to stand for the vast black poor of South Africa. But after being gifted an expanding economy, he plundered it in daylight and his own corpulent wealth has gorged on the nation’s finances. The difference in stature between Mandela and this lesser uncle is Shakespearian in character, and brings to mind Hamlet’s comparison: “So excellent a king; that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr”.

The charges against Zuma are more numerous than I can list here, but chief among them and stamped upon his legacy shall be the words “State Capture”. The Guptas, a family of wealthy immigrants now largely domiciled in Dubai, have lavished Zuma in funds and in exchange they have bought the very levers of government: selling ministerial jobs; sacking anyone with a whiff of integrity from the finance department; pawning huge government tenders mired in bribery; bought the government’s nuclear energy policy. But the charges are not limited to 30 pieces of silver or even 30 million rand. In dramatic news, it has been reported this week that businesses owned by the Guptas have been raided by South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, known as the Hawks. A powerful book was published last year, written by Redi Thlabi. Thlabi was a friend of the late Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo who had accused Jacob Zuma of rape, a charge he was cleared of in 2006... read more:



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