There is formal and informal power in SA and, more often than not, it is informal power that holds sway. It is a negotiation for the most part, between principle and pragmatism. Principle has as its totem the constitution. Pragmatism has self-interest. But, when the dust has settled, inevitably it is self-interest that is left standing while principle lies battered and beaten beneath its feet. Afterwards, there are grand debates about how it should all have played out. But, really, there was only ever one winner.
You see this conflict everywhere. Typically there is a personality at the centre — some temporal embodiment of self-interest. Jacob Zuma, however, is the metonym for the problem. His battle is decades old now, and for the first time in a long while you feel principle has the upper hand. But don’t confuse a courtroom with a prison cell. They are two very different things. Already the forces for pragmatism are hard at work to circumvent any possibility that the latter might become a reality.
This time they are led, curiously, by Julius Malema — as faithful a servant of self-interest as ever there was. A year ago now, breaking with a litany of unequivocal demands and promises that Zuma will go to prison, Malema said: “But we can’t jail him, what kind of society are we if we jail old people?” Jail him, Malema said, and “we are going to make him a victim”.
It was a strange detour into the world of compassion; a strange rationale too, for Zuma is already the king of victims. Stranger still against the backdrop of Malema’s previous fervent insistence that Zuma go to jail, and his deep and long-standing desire for Zuma to experience pain. “Zuma must go rot in jail, he does not deserve to live among us,” Malema said in 2014. “We can tell you now — Zuma will go to jail. We want to see him suffer until the end,” he said in 2018. But no more.
Hypocrisy is hard-wired into Malema. There is no position or ideal, principled or pragmatic, that is sacred. They all serve at the altar of a brutal self-interest. And they all can be changed accordingly. Malema said in 2017: “Zuma will be in prison as a pensioner.” Now he pleads, with tears in his eyes, that the court “should take his age into consideration”. His suggestion is coming to a big screen near you soon. The forces of pragmatism are by no means done yet.
Having suspended his bloodlust for Zuma to suffer until the end, he has come to the conclusion the answer to the real question is no
Ace Magashule, the poor man’s Zuma, is a good testing ground for how the former president will be treated if found guilty. There is no desire in the ANC for its secretary-general to do anything that might be seen to equate to even the smallest concession there is a problem. The situation is entirely dictated and held hostage by informal power, to a degree that is farcical.
Magashule knows his and Zuma’s stories are inextricably linked. The ANC too. Any precedent set will apply to all comers. And at the top of that mountain of delinquents sits Zuma. Scrape away all the rhetorical pretence and the real question being asked is: “If our politics is built around big men, can we sustain order if the big men fall?”
Malema is a big man — self-styled at least, even if his actual following is only an electoral pittance. Little wonder that he is suddenly so invested in forgiveness. Having suspended his bloodlust for Zuma to suffer until the end, he has come to the conclusion the answer to the real question is no. That in itself is interesting. There was a time when he argued no-one would blink if Zuma was jailed, that his ostensible influence was a mere illusion.
You have to give it to Zuma — even at his weakest he can make big men tremble. That is the weight of informal power, and he brought it all to bear on Malema. When push came to shove, Malema collapsed. It’s why Zuma has never been threatened by Malema’s pseudoconstitutional theatrics. He always knew all this unhappiness could be settled by an informal chat. And, sure enough, Malema came round eventually.
As a precursor to his “no jail” suggestion, in 2019 Malema announced he had “forgiven” Zuma. Now he has tea with the man. That meeting was a wonderful metaphor. Two big men, discussing how to bypass the constitution. Both perfectly willing to say and do whatever is necessary to achieve an outcome that serves their self-interest. Malema now, as in the days of old, following Zuma’s lead. How captivated we are by it all.
Malema was right when he argued that we overestimate Zuma’s real influence. If you can look past the bright rhetorical lights these demagogues use to mask their true intent, the truth is the big men are small indeed. Scared, weak and terrified that, in the moment, principle might best pragmatism. Because where would that leave them, other than cowering in the dark, raging against the coming of the light? What safer place for Malema to be than back in the arms of the man he once called “our father”?
As for the EFF, Malema has not so much betrayed the party as re-educated it. It was reading the scriptures all wrong. And so his army of acolytes now forgives Zuma too. If he can just get the ANC to agree. All he has to do is get the relevant big men around a table and talk informally, in soft tones, to explain the scriptures to them too.
Malema once held the constitution up and said “This is our Bible,” without which we would be just “another failed African state”. He also once claimed Zuma had never read the constitution. Malema has solved that conundrum the way he solves all such riddles. The constitution was never relevant outside media conferences anyway. You can be sure when he and Zuma sat down it never even came up.
• Van Onselen, a former journalist who also worked for the DA in various capacities, was head of politics at the SA Institute of Race Relations before joining market research company Victory Research as CEO. He writes in his personal capacity.
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