A loss for Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma at the ANC’s conference this weekend would be the final nail in President Jacob Zuma’s political coffin. But even her victory would not guarantee that he remained in office.
Consummate survivor Zuma has dodged the near impossible, until now. He is a step away from the cover of the ANC he has long used to shield his wrongdoing. He has declared several times that his enemies are targeting him to bring down the ANC.
What will his excuse be after the elective conference ends on Wednesday?
The two court judgments handed down over the past week make it clear his days of legal manoeuvring and obfuscation to avoid accountability are nearing an end. The courts are no longer tolerating it.
Effectively, last Friday’s ruling means his lackey and utterly discredited National Prosecuting Authority boss Shaun Abrahams’s days are finally numbered.
This Wednesday, the court dealt him an equally devastating blow, which has wider implications for his family — particularly his son Duduzane, who may be the first Zuma to don orange overalls.
In both judgments, Zuma’s conflict of interest was highlighted as a factor preventing him from carrying out his constitutional obligations. The ANC should be aghast — it has deployed a president who cannot effectively carry out his role as head of state due to his personal conflicts and run-ins with the law. The party’s response to the judgment was clear; no more delaying the inevitable, the ANC’s curt statement implied.
The Constitutional Court judgment on Nkandla and the scandal’s subsequent effect on the ANC’s electoral performance sparked the first and belated opposition to Zuma from the party’s national executive committee. He survived two calls from the top leadership to step down.
The Nkandla judgment also spurred the party’s veterans into action, culminating in their consultative conference in November at which 101 former leaders and members of the party including former presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe, called on him to step down.
Zuma’s decade-long spell over Cosatu finally broke after the Nkandla judgment and its central executive committee called on him to step down.
The two latest judgments do not bode well for Zuma. Wednesday’s judgment rules he must set up a judicial commission of inquiry into state capture in 30 days and Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng should select the presiding judge.
There will be no place to hide for the captured and the capturers once this process starts, as there is no room for Zuma to slither his way out by appointing a weak or ineffectual judge to accomplish nothing, as he did with the arms deal inquiry.
The Eskom inquiry in Parliament has exposed shocking facts. For the first time, Zuma has been linked directly to the rot at the parastatal wrought by his friends the Guptas and his other minion in Dudu Myeni.
Wednesday’s judgment was scathing about Zuma’s conduct in attempting to interdict the release of the state-capture report and it supported former public protector Thuli Madonsela’s directive on remedial action to be taken.
Zuma says he is appealing against the judgment on Abrahams’s suitability as national director of public prosecutions, as it emerged he has given Zuma until January to make fresh representations on the 18 charges of fraud, racketeering and corruption he faces. Even if Abrahams makes a decision on the matter, it could be overturned should he and Zuma lose their appeal.
Zuma will no longer be president of the ANC after next Wednesday and will be more vulnerable than ever. His lackeys have shifted their allegiance to Dlamini-Zuma. Her recent comments and conduct show clearly that she is no longer her own person. Like the ANC’s leadership and the state, she has been captured by Zuma and will readily do his bidding.
Her backers are muttering about removing Zuma as president of the country to give her a chance to prove herself ahead of the 2019 polls.
But her victory at the ANC conference would help cushion this blow and shield Zuma from accounting to a court of law for any of his alleged wrongs. It is therefore essential for Zuma that his former wife does win the leadership race.
Their fates have never been more entwined.
Should Cyril Ramaphosa be elected leader of the ANC all he would need to do is appoint a clean and credible national director of public prosecutions and allow the inquiry on state capture to unfold — no fiddling or prodding required to allow the law to take its course.
Zuma would then face the music in the same way as any other citizen. This is what he fears most.
• Marrian is political editor.
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