Opinion & Analysis

You’d be forgiven for thinking Jacob Zuma was already running the country. All the big issues of the day seem to revolve around him ­ the future of the Scorpions, the future of the judiciary and, hell, the shape of a future economy and the succession to Thabo Mbeki as president.

As a political strategy, this is exactly how Zuma would want it and he does appear to have left Mbeki and his remaining loyalists in the presidency and the cabinet quite flat-footed. Who does Mbeki reach out to now he feels his final term is beginning to fray at the edges? There really isn’t anyone. He appears to have lost the party.

The thing about fighting for power is that you shouldn’t really care about the collateral damage while you’re about it. Jacob Zuma certainly doesn’t care.

That much is clear in his statements outside the Durban Magistrate’s Court last week, where he fuelled the patently absurd conspiracy theory that the charges against him are politically motivated and designed to stop his bid to succeed Mbeki as head of the ANC in 2007 and as head of state in 2009.

In promising to reveal the “real reasons” for his prosecution at some future date, Zuma has in effect declared war on the ANC’s ruling elite and, more specifically, on Mbeki.

He has also made it apparent just how farcical the recently forged pact between the two was. Just over a month ago, Zuma and Mbeki committed themselves to respecting the rule of law, abiding by party discipline and refraining from inflammatory public statements. The agreement, which was subsequently given the thumbs-up by the alliance partners, was clearly an attempt by leaders of the ANC to come to grips with the growing political gap between the two camps.

And so, with his comments in Durban, Zuma, backed by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), the South African Communist Party and the ANC Youth League ­ or at least by influential members within these parties ­ has made it clear he will continue the battle. Do we care? Does it matter in the greater scheme of things? This, after all, is a man already tainted by corruption, one who has been rightly fired by Mbeki for having a generally corrupt relationship with a crooked businessman, Schabir Shaik. It should not matter that Zuma has decided to challenge the president.

But it does, for a number of different reasons. It matters because Zuma is a likeable man and a popular leader who has an increasingly strong swell of support within the ANC and its partners. Despite his brush with the law, he is seen as an elder statesman who safeguarded the ANC’s intelligence-gathering activities during a critical period in its history. He is credited with playing a key role in bringing peace to war-torn KwaZulu-Natal and remains highly regarded in the province, and he has had diplomatic successes on the continent, notably in Burundi.

It matters because although Mbeki has been largely impressive in his handling of this situation, he has made a number of key missteps that have left his flank exposed. His autocratic style of leadership has meant many people who should be key allies ­ such as Cosatu’s Zwelinzima Vavi ­ have been left out in the cold, notably on policy decisions. Incredibly, Mbeki has never had a one-on-one meeting with Vavi, the executive head of the ANC’s biggest political ally.

By removing himself from the traditionally democratic structures of the ANC in an attempt to outmanoeuvre others, he may have forgotten (or stopped caring about) where the power centres in his party and alliance partners lie. That has left him increasingly isolated and alone.

He is clearly beginning to feel the heat. On every one of the so-called “Zuma issues”, his staff and his cabinet are divided. That in itself is debilitating ­ these, after all, are people with a great deal of work to do to reach their growth and development targets.

But, primarily, the Zuma fight matters not because of what we can all see it doing to the people involved, but because of what it hides from public view.

Take, for instance, the public battle over the future of the Scorpions, which is seen largely through the prism of the Mbeki-Zuma fight ­ rightly or wrongly. A popular theory now is that Mbeki has decided to give up the fight for the Scorpions after being accused of using them to forward a political agenda against Zuma. They are becoming too much a political liability for him, the theory goes, and the overly pessimistic view is that there seems little that can save them now that two cabinet ministers, Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla and Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula, have abandoned them.

Only Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils is fighting in their corner, it seems, but his director-general, Billy Masetlha is a fierce Scorpions critic. But does that mean all the voices against the Scorpions are Zuma supporters, or vice versa? It surely cannot be, particularly in the case of strong personalities such as Masetlha or Charles Nqakula.

The fact is there are old turf battles, started long before our democracy, that are being played out here, albeit against the dramatic Zuma-Mbeki backdrop.

SA is riddled with official intelligence services. Besides the National Intelligence Agency and the Secret Service, the police have at least one, the defence force has Defence Intelligence and the Scorpions run, we are told, another. They are jealous and fearful of each other and it would be wrong to assume the shadow hanging over the Scorpions is necessarily Zuma’s.

In reality, Zuma is probably as powerless to control events as is Mbeki. The only way to mark them is the way they behave and, it is clear to us, Zuma let himself down badly in Durban last week.

It is utterly reasonable, however, that he would continue to portray himself as a victim and it is too much to expect that he apologise now for his relationship with the fraudster Shaik. That would be an admission of guilt.

But just because Zuma is big news, it doesn’t, to answer the point at the top, have to mean he is suddenly a puppet-master. He will stand trial for fraud and, hopefully, emerge with his dignity (if not his record) intact. But he has not started well in court.

Mbeki, on the other hand, is fated to keep quiet (though we detect a slight thaw in his normally frosty feelings about the press) and press on with the development goals he has set himself. He must not waiver in the face of the Zuma onslaught, and that would include protecting the Scorpions’ independence. Anything less than dogged resolve would look like cowardice.

With acknowledgement to Business Day.