The+madness+of+Max+du+Preez,+The+Star

The Star, Johannesburg, October 12, 2006 //Edition 1//
=It's time to stop the madness=


 * //This country cannot afford a ruling party in turmoil for another year or more//**


 * Max du Preez**

I have always thought it was unhealthy and undesirable for citizens to have too much respect for political leaders. I have always believed that strong leaders make for a weak democracy.

Well, I got what I wanted and suddenly, embarrassingly, I don't like it. The president, the cabinet and the ANC's top leadership are all a bunch of sissies, and they're scared of Jacob Zuma and his loudmouthed posse. We need a bit of backbone right now.

The information scandal of the late 1970s and the breakaway of the Conservative Party contributed greatly to the maturing of the Afrikaner body politic.

These events demystified the National Party and showed that the once revered leaders were simply fallible politicians. For the first time, the prime minister and his cabinet members were criticised and even ridiculed in public. It was an essential development in preparing the white electorate for what they had to do a decade later.

But PW Botha and his core leadership never allowed their troubles to become a circus and a free-for-all. They stabilised the situation and used the crisis to ensconce themselves and to marginalise their enemies. One doesn't need to like them to admit that, tactically and strategically, they were very smart, even when they had to show some kragdadigheid (forcefulness).

Thabo Mbeki and his "advisers" (I use quotation marks, because Essop Pahad is one of them) can't spell the word strategy and confuse kragdadigheid with unilateral decision-making and the occasional insult. The silly little teenager of the Young Communist League could not have been more wrong when he called Mbeki a dictator.

The drama around Jacob Zuma and the infighting in the tripartite alliance are all very entertaining, sometimes even hilarious, but in the past few weeks the crisis in the ANC has developed to such proportions that it is beginning to undermine confidence in our country and could soon threaten our stability.

It is time for the madness to stop. We are now beyond healthy difference of opinion and "robust interaction", as the ANC's chief spin doctor called the vicious mud-slinging at the weekend.

The ruling party is now paralysed, the president emasculated, the masses restless and the minority groups nervous. The crisis is now affecting actual policy, actual government decision-making. Cabinet ministers are not actually betraying the president, but they are trying hard not to do or say anything that could annoy those who could be dishing out favours when Mbeki's influence has gone.

Few, if any of them, are actually putting their bodies on the line for the man who gave them their jobs.

Even my old friend the Bulgarian commissar Snuki Zikalala is failing his masters. He seems to have forgotten who saved him from the lowly job of media spokesperson for a government department and facilitated his return to the SABC, this time as boss of news.

If he was worth his salt as a commissar in charge of the most influential media organ, which includes a Zulu language radio station and a mostly Zulu language television channel, he would have used his rather crude talent for propaganda to mobilise support for the Mbeki faction of the ANC. Perhaps Snuki is also hedging his bets.

An ANC insider told me this week that the obvious thing Mbeki should have done was to order the two senior Communist Party leaders in his cabinet, Charles Nqakula and Ronnie Kasrils, to whip their party back into line or face the chop. I think that might just have worked. If Mbeki could neutralise the SACP, Cosatu would quietly return to the fold.

Instead, the president and his lieutenants have allowed the rot to grow. Insulting the SACP leader in public isn't going to work. The rebels and the Zuma cheering commando are much better at outrageous insults than the president of the country. They are becoming more frenzied by the day, like a hyena smelling the blood of a wounded animal.

People who have known Jacob Zuma throughout his long political life can't believe that it is the same man who now wows the crowds with some flair. The loyal party man has suddenly become a showman. I'm not sure if he has master strategists as advisers or whether he is simply exploiting the fault lines in the tripartite alliance in terms of class, ethnicity and ideology.

The Sowetan's poll on Zuma's support confirms what we have suspected: 63% of those who participated by phone voted for him, as opposed to only 44% of those who used the Internet (presumed to be members of the middle class).

Women voted overwhelmingly against him. His support among Zulu-speakers seems to be overwhelming, prompting IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi to warn against the whipping up of tribal emotions.

One thing is certain: South Africa cannot afford a ruling party in turmoil for another year or more.

It is time to force the SACP out of the alliance and to consolidate. Or is Thabo really a sissy?


 * From: http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3481712**