How+will+this+year+be+remembered,+Shubane,+Johnson,+B+Day

Business Day, Johannesburg, 06 December 2006
=What will this turbulent year be remembered for?=


 * Khehla Shubane vs. R W Johnson**

Have events this year changed the likely political course of SA? We have seen open hostility to the Mbeki presidency, ructions within the alliance, and arms of state apparently used as extensions of political factions. Will we look back on 2006 as a year that meant big changes for SA’s polity and, if so, what will be the key points of it? Looking ahead to 2007, are we likely to see more of the same?


 * DEAR KHEHLA**

There was a sharp change in September-October 2006. Thanks in large part to Zuma’s two court victories, it became clear that Mbeki was not winning the factional struggle within the ANC. This sudden revelation of weakness — he couldn’t attend a Cosatu or SACP congress without being howled down, and even an ANC national conference or parliamentary caucus was now unsafe ground for him — gave a new boldness to his critics on the left and in the media. Mbeki rushed off to the only safe ground left— attacking the rich nations at the UN, but there followed humiliating policy reversals over AIDS and Cape Town.

No doubt he may try to claw back some of the lost ground but we now have a lame-duck president for years ahead. Even his foreign policy is in ruins: Nepad, the African Renaissance and the AU have lost all momentum, the Pan African Parliament is a joke and he’s been ejected from Cote d’Ivoire.

If, like Time magazine, you ask who was the Man of the Year — not the man you like most but who most made the news — you’d have to say Jacob Zuma. Despite being repeatedly written off by the chattering classes, he has shown huge stamina and resilience. It doesn’t matter much what case is brought against him now: the ANC rank and file will see it as yet another unfair attempt to use the courts as an instrument of factional struggle. Even a guilty verdict won’t hold water with them now. Indeed, even the verdict against Schabir Shaik looks very unsafe: the court found no evidence of a straightforward bribe, just a symbiotic relationship it didn’t like. You could have said all the same things about Mbeki’s relationship with Sol Kerzner. Things could unravel a whole lot more in 2007.

//Regards, Bill//


 * DEAR BILL**

While 2006 will have to be recorded as a difficult year for the ANC, the party also achieved major advances. The dismissal of Zuma from the cabinet must count as the most difficult decision to have been taken by any ANC president.

The turbulent relationships within the alliance must also have raised doubts in the minds of many about the wisdom of an alliance among groups which cannot seem to agree on key strategic issues.

The aggressive posture of the ANC Youth League towards the ANC is as confusing as the total absence from major debates of the ANC Women’s League. Equally baffling is to try and think of these latter groups as wholly owned subsidiaries of the ANC.

Miraculously, the ANC appears set to end the year in better shape. The public seems to appreciate the extent to which the party has taken it into its confidence in discussing intimate details relating to relationships among its leaders.

The ANC has shown itself capable of acting firmly when evidence of wrongdoing, even by leaders, has leading been presented. An impeccable struggle record has to date not given anyone impunity.

Many of the problems the party faced could have been resolved behind closed doors. The ANC has shown maturity in opening to the public what must have been difficult debates.

//Regards, Khehla//


 * DEAR KHEHLA**

I see it differently. The ANC tried to keep everything under wraps and pretend there was nothing wrong, but in the end it couldn’t. If you talk to ordinary ANC members, they say, look, we know all our leaders are corrupt. There is no member of the ruling group who will end up as anything other than a rich man. We expect that.

So why make a special example out of Zuma? Smuts Ngonyama, Penuell Maduna, Cyril Ramaphosa, Cheryl Carolus, Tokyo Sexwale and Saki Macozoma have, with extraordinary speed, all become a lot richer than Zuma. Let’s not pretend this is because they have all suddenly discovered a huge and hitherto unsuspected business acumen. Which means Zuma has been unjustly treated and the state’s machinery wrongly used against him.

There is a certain rough justice to this view and it is confirmed all the time. Shaik gives money to Zuma (and is thus no friend of Mbeki’s) and gets 15 years; Yengeni accepts money corruptly, lies to Parliament about it and will be out of jail after four months because he is an Mbeki client. The comparison is obvious. The other thing you hear, especially from MK people, is that they look at what’s going on with such disgust and anger and say: “I didn’t join the struggle for that.” These feelings are breaking the surface now and they will not fade away at all easily. Of course Zuma, Cosatu and the SACP try to turn them to their account, but even without them these feelings would exist. What happened in 2006 is that the genie escaped from the bottle.

//Regards, Bill//


 * DEAR BILL**

The choice of individuals who become wealthy is made by business people, most of them white, and certainly not by the government.

Cyril Ramaphosa and the rest of the newly rich were not selected by the ANC; they struck relationships with white business people who selected them as BEE partners.

There are, however, some who think their role in opposing apartheid should be recompensed by being given preference in government jobs. How else do you explain persisting demands for incorporation into the national army as well as that ghastly quote often attributed to Ngonyama, “I did not join the struggle to be poor”. A role in the struggle was no insurance policy any individual took that would pay once apartheid was removed.

Looking ahead to 2007, at least two events are bound to capture the top spot on the agenda, one being starting work on stadiums for the World Cup. This work must start in order to remove any doubt that SA will be the host of the in 2010 soccer.

A crucial point in this regard is that someone must start informing soccer fans that they will not make it to the most exciting matches. Tickets will go to a select few. Another event that is sure to be given considerable airtime is who will be the ANC president. I suggest the following should be among the candidates for the position: Ms Phumzile Mlambo- Ngcuka, Messrs Pravin Gordhan, Terror Lekota and Trevor Manuel.

//Regards, Khehla//


 * DEAR KHEHLA**

There was a brief week in 2006 when it was reported that Ramaphosa would be a presidential candidate. Amid the rapturous reception that this (non) news received, it was immediately clear that neither Phumzile, Mrs Zuma or any of the other preposterous women in the cabinet were really starters at all. The ANC is also far too imbued with racial nationalism to consider Gordhan or Manuel. In practice, ANC government has been Nguni government and, since 2004, Xhosa government. One has to realise that Zulus are the most numerous and formidable group; that a Zulu was the ANC’s first leader and that Luthuli, the last Zulu leader, was rather rudely pushed off the stage.

Since then we’ve had Tambo, Mandela and Mbeki — three Xhosas in a row. In Zulu eyes, it is now high time the leadership reverted to a Zulu. Zuma will thus be a very formidable can didate, particularly with the SACP, Cosatu and the ANCYL behind him. Those who wish to stop Zuma are going to have to rally behind a real heavyweight. But Mbeki will not allow that to happen — he will try to extend his own rule or push forward candidates he can manipulate and this will continue to block the possibility of a serious alternative candidate.

Mbeki has thus objectively become Zuma’s greatest ally. Meanwhile, the governance of the country goes to hell. Mbeki’s bugbear has always been the fear that “Africans can’t govern” yet ironically he is ending up as a perfect exemplar of this notion.

//Regards, Bill//


 * DEAR BILL**

Although I do not speak for the ANC, the three presidents of the ANC you cite rose to that position because they were the best individuals at the time.

Tambo was elected president in exile after the tragic death of Chief Albert Luthuli; Mandela at a conference inside SA wherein his ethnic identity was irrelevant but his ability to move the country forward counted for everything, and Mbeki was not only unopposed but received considerable ANC support.

No one anywhere in the world can produce so formidable a team of leaders. Any ethnic set- aside in respect of who can be president of the ANC must be a well-guarded secret, for it is not generally known that this exists.

If any racial or gender restrictions were observed in the past, surely this is moribund now? It would be great for SA to be led by Ms Mlambo-Ngcuka, who is no less capable than anyone. Messrs Lekota, Manuel and Gordhan led the UDF with distinction. Why are they thought to be suddenly unable to lead now?

The dearth of leadership implicit in a few names that are always mentioned when potential future presidents are discussed is an artificially induced crisis.

//Regards, Khehla//


 * From: http://www.businessday.co.za/specialist/articles/FaceOff.aspx?ID=BD4A335971**

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