In the face of what has become almost endemic corruption by the ruling party, it is also an indictment on the opposition that we have not seen a major shift in voting patterns to match the 'wasted years' of Zuma-induced calamity. SAElections2019.
Jacob Zuma sold himself to South Africans as Everyman, that allegorical character that could so easily be you. With his lilting laugh and easy smile, he promised something different.
But power was never the stated objective. He could connect with the people, his supporters enthused. And he would do good by the people in a way previous administrations had failed. And so, the thousands of people in the ANC who had grown weary of the cult of personality around an “aloof” Thabo Mbeki were heartened. In Zuma, there was the hope of something different. He was everything that Mbeki could never be. Or so he promised.
What’s more, the Zuma years saw the most significant political shift since 1994. When the ANC lost Johannesburg and Tshwane in 2016, it was a blow to the party’s conception of itself as the beloved liberation movement. Zuma would reshuffle his Cabinet 11 times during his term in power. Many of those reshuffles were incomprehensible to all but Zuma. What was clear, however, was the way Zuma used these reshuffles to quell those he suspected of disloyalty.
But ultimately, despite the incremental gains, both the main opposition parties should be engaged in deep introspection as to what can only be seen as their failure to wrest power from the ruling party. On the DA’s side, this can in part be attributed to bungling its internecine battles, which have been laid bare in an untimely way.
He was shielded by the vast majority of NEC members, beholden to him through a network of patronage that has still not been dismantled, as evidenced in the relentless fight for control by the faction aligned to secretary general Ace Magashule. Last year, he told his allies in this faction that it was simply a “matter of five years, comrades”, before they regained control of the ANC.
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