GARETH VAN ONSELEN: How chaos has come to control Jacob Zuma

On March 30, President Jacob Zuma reshuffled his Cabinet for the eleventh time. All things being equal, with the dust settled it is possible to take a more dispassionate look at Zuma’s general approach to reconstituting his executive and Cabinet and to see what insights we can draw.

Since constituting his first cabinet in May 2009, the president has made 126 changes to the national executive. The latest reshuffle means any given national executive lasts an average of just 8.6 months under Zuma. Thus he has created an atmosphere of permanent volatility and uncertainty at the top of government. It would seem to be the result of three distinct factors.

First, there are those changes necessitated by incompetence or poor performance. These are rare, inconsistent and never explicitly explained. Sometimes a minister will be removed on the back of gross maladministration but one can only speculate that to be the cause.

Dina Pule, for example, the former communications minister, was fired from her position in July 2013 (in Zuma’s 6th reshuffle). But the various crises she was responsible for were never cited or referred to as the reason. Indeed, Zuma merely read out a list, then said, "Thank you … and goodbye." Second, there are those changes designed, it would appear, to serve an unseen political purpose. It is almost impossible to tell the reasons that underpin such calls in most cases, but some are obvious.

The decision, for example, to remove both finance minister Pravin Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, is clearly linked to a very particular agenda the president wishes the Treasury to implement and of which he felt both men stood in the way.

Others are intimated. Former mining minister Ngoako Ramatlhodi, for example, told amaBhungane he was removed from his post (on September 22 2015, the only change in Zuma’s 8th reshuffle) shortly after refusing to suspend Glencore’s mining licences, at the behest of Brian Molefe and Ben Ngubane. But for all this speculation, and there is much of it, some incredibly well evidenced, Zuma’s own political motivations remain private and can be discerned only through the behaviour and actions of third parties.

Third, it is a way of exercising and consolidating power in an environment in which the president is both under siege and pressure. By creating a situation in which no one is ever certain of their position and changes are constant without due consideration to expertise or experience, the entire ANC national caucus has been transformed into a potential pool for executive office.

Historically, certainly for the first half of Zuma’s two administrations, this was the key to understanding much of his influence and internal power. The primary reason was that it had the effect of rendering the legislature deferential to the executive. If an ANC MP is not executive-minded, as a result of having previously served as a minister or deputy minister, then the very real prospect of becoming one serves to engender compliance and obsequiousness in them.

Consider this: Zuma’s first national executive, in 2009, consisted of 64 people — the president, deputy president, 33 ministers and 29 deputy ministers. The current national executive stands at 74 people. It includes the president, the deputy president, 35 ministers and 37 deputy ministers.

That growth, coupled with the 126 changes Zuma has made means that only 11 people have retained the position they held in 2009. Thirty-nine people who served on the national executive in 2009 are gone. If one extends the parameters to include all 11 reshuffles, the number gets closer to 80. Together with 74 members of the national executive, that means about 150 ANC MPs are current or past members of the executive.

There are some disclaimers. The ANC caucus changed somewhat with the 2014 elections, some of those changes saw people deployed to the provinces or elsewhere, sometimes because of a death or illness there. But these are a minority of cases. The total size of the current ANC caucus in the national assembly is 249. It is fair to say the majority have served on the executive.

Zuma could get away with all this because of the control he once exercised over the ANC’s NEC. As of November 2015, of the 80 members elected onto the NEC at the party’s national conference, 59 (or 73%) held public positions at the president’s discretion (including 28 ministers, 11 deputy ministers and 10 parliamentary committee chairs). His power of patronage in government was replicated inside the party.

Essentially, Zuma was able to exercise more control through organised chaos. But it has come at a price.

Whereas changes during his first administration (2009-14) were from a position of power, there is an argument to be made that the 20 changes he made in March (ten ministers and ten deputies) were more of necessity than design.

Zuma is now trying to consolidate and retain power, as opposed to manipulating it.

Certainly, so far as the finance department goes, his final choice was not his first choice. Brian Molefe was by all accounts first in line, but following a rebuke from the SACP and the ANC’s top six, Malusi Gigaba was appointed instead. He will no doubt serve Zuma’s general purpose, but Molefe brought with him not just the private interests Gigaba could replicate but, in terms of raw expertise and experience, a far greater track record in senior financial management.

Perhaps the greatest negative impact of Zuma’s relentless musical chairs is the systematic denuding of talent. The ANC executive, as in the legislature, is now threadbare; an empty vessel that runs more on systems than forethought or vision. And the systems are themselves falling apart. All that is left is the illusion of government — the pretence of serious people feigning leadership when, in truth, they can barely follow what little direction there is.

In turn, division and factionalism have brought with them dissent. Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu shows promising signs of independence. Once no less than Zuma’s de facto spokesperson for the ANC, he now has set himself apart. Even Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, a man born without a spine, has been forced by Zuma’s meddling with the Treasury, to at least stand upright and renounce the removal of Gordhan.

Thirty-six ANC MPs chose to abstain from voting on the past motion of no confidence against Zuma. There is a party within a party now. For them, alienation has engendered resentment, not the hope of future reward. Likewise, the NEC appears more fractured. The motion of no confidence brought against Zuma in November 2016 by Derek Hanekom (since axed from the executive) almost brought the relevant meeting to its knees.

But the ultimate price is paid in actual governance. Two departments, communications and public service and administration, have now had six ministers each in seven years. Co-operative governance has had five. It is a problem replicated at director-general level, where communications, for example, has had some eight DGs in a full or acting capacity over the same period.

Viewed over time, it becomes apparent that Zuma’s strategy of perpetual change is in the process of imploding

That pattern more or less plays itself out throughout the national administration. Ministers (the political heads) and DGs (the administrative heads) are together responsible for any department’s programme of action. If they are constantly changed it cannot function effectively. The department of communications is a case in point and a study of incompetence. There are many others. And that is before one even mentions the SABC.

Viewed over time, it becomes apparent that Zuma’s strategy of perpetual change is in the process of imploding. Where once he controlled the chaos, it now controls him.

But there are continuities that are hard to ignore. Zuma did not fully purge the executive of SACP members this time around. The likes of Blade Nzimande (SACP general secretary and a recent convert from acolyte to critic) has retained his place, along with Rob Davies. They are two of only eleven ministers and deputy ministers to have kept their places since 2009. That means, however shaky, what is left of the alliance is still holding. If only just. Enough, at any rate, to allow Zuma a reshuffle at all.

Jacob Zuma has never been a leader of government. He has always been a manipulator of power. For him, the national executive is not a machine best designed to deliver an outcome. It is the outcome: a Game of Thrones through which he can consolidate and fashion political power relations to one end above all others — his own position. But the game is out of hand now, spiralling and it has him in its grip.

Play with chaos too much and it has that effect. Before you know it, strategy becomes necessity and, when that happens, it is no longer you running the show but forces you cannot see or quantify. Controlled chaos without control is just chaos. That is what we now have.

To say Zuma is hanging on by a thread is not true; he has enough rope in his hand to orchestrate an eleventh change, even if forced to compromise. But make no mistake, he is wrapping that rope round his neck. And his grasp on it is slipping, just as the tension tightens.