Commentary (by James N Kariuki) - Perceptions of Zuma to affect SA globally

Ref:http://www.eastandard.net/news/?id=1143982999&cid=190


Published on March 9, 2008, 12:00 am

By James N Kariuki

Now that Jacob Zuma is practically South Africa’s President-designate, perceptions of him have national implications.

Unfortunately, Zuma’s political circumstances for the past several years have compelled him to resort to contradictory behaviour. Will the real Zuma please stand up?

After dismissal as the country’s Deputy President in 2005, Zuma faced a do-or-die political crisis that called for unorthodoxy.

For political survival, he adopted the position of a victim of a contrived conspiracy to thwart him from becoming president.

And he effectively exploited the victim psyche strategy - injury to one is injury to all.

The most receptive groups to the victimisation approach were the trade unions, the Communist Party and the ANC Youth League.

The groups were already disenchanted with President Thabo Mbeki’s leadership that they considered pro-business.

These ‘colleagues-in-arms’ did most of the political ground work en route to Zuma’s Polokwane victory of December 2007.

Zuma’s post-Polokwane foreign trips to assert the succession battle displayed him as anti-business.

Also critical to Zuma’s political survival was the fact that he is a Zulu with little formal education.

Prior to Polokwane Zuma did not mind that image, in fact he relished it. Behold his embrace of T-shirts branding him ‘100 % Zulu boy.’

The political imperative was to distant Zuma from Mbeki’s leadership. Mbeki was seen as an aloof intellectual, while Zuma was a man of the people.

Mbeki could easily quote esoteric authors to prove that he was an African. Zuma did not need to affirm his ‘African-ness’. Observe him dancing and wielding a big stick clad in his leopard skin.

After Polokwane, Zuma’s pressing imperative was to stay out of jail. Perhaps unwittingly, in this quest, his campaign has been laced with a spectre of violence. All along, Zuma’s clarion call has been a war song, "mshimi wam, (give me my machine gun)".

The emphasis on his "Zulu-ness’ has had an inference that political power is disproportionately held by the Xhosa.

In this context, Zuma supporters started questioning the eligibility of the judicial system to determine Zuma’s guilt or innocence. And the threat of violence became publicly open: "If Zuma is dragged to court, blood will be spilt."

Fate decided by judiciary

Fortunately, Zuma has vehemently demonstrated his faith in the judicial system. After all, it was the same system that recently absolved him of a serious rape charge.

Regarding the pending criminal charges of corruption, money laundering and tax evasion, Zuma has consistently insisted on an opportunity to prove his innocence.

He has retained a highly visible (read costly) legal team, a further demonstration of confidence in the legal process.

But one of the biggest of Zuma’s ironies occurred in mid-February 2008. He went to Mauritius to petition that country’s court to bar SA’s prosecutors from obtaining original documents said to incriminate him and his convicted financial adviser in a corrupt relationship. This is a battle against prosecution.

Meanwhile, Zuma’s attorneys back home question the admissibility of those documents before the Constitutional Court, if they are indeed obtained.

If this manoeuvre fails, Zuma will finally invoke the principle of justice delayed is justice denied because the state has spent more than eight years to charge him.

Yet, most of the delays have been due to what has been dubbed, ‘Zuma’s "disingenuous legal tactics."

All in all, for the presidency, Zuma must prove his innocence before the nation and the world by refuting, not bypassing, the accusations against him.

In 2007, outspoken Archbishop Desmond Tutu publicly urged Zuma to step out of the presidential contest for the sake of the country.

To him, Zuma’s candidacy had become too divisive for the nation.

Tutu had in mind the internal political cohesion of SA. But the infection is now spilling over to other sectors.

In February 2008, Fitch, a global credit ratings agency, reported that international investors perceive Zuma’s rise to power as a political risk. If other international credit ratings agencies follow suit, perception of Zuma could reduce SA’s borrowing power, which could ultimately stymie national economic growth.

Would Zuma want that on his conscience?