Publication: Sunday Times
Issued:
Date: 2005-10-16
Reporter: Ray Hartley
Reporter:
Our
future and our way of life are at stake
The rise of the movement to
place in power Jacob Zuma at best an incompetent,
at worst a man who believes it is acceptable to take bribes poses a grave risk
to this country.
To date the political battle between President Thabo
Mbeki and Zuma has been cast as simply another political power play. It is more
than that.
It threatens to unstitch the political and
economic fabric which has been so carefully sewn into place over the past
11 years.
The ascendancy of Zuma from icon of the left to mass populist
figure has just begun; it is hard to see how those within the ANC who remain
opposed to corruption will turn the tide.
They have allowed Zuma to seize
the initiative and have failed to offer the public a credible leadership
alternative to fill the vacuum which Mbeki will leave when he steps down in
2009.
They appear to be relying heavily on institutional action to save
the day, waiting for the criminal justice system to deliver a knock-out blow by
finding Zuma guilty of corruption.
Zuma and his growing band of
supporters are meanwhile outflanking them by challenging the very foundations of
these institutions.
They are fighting for and winning the battle to have
the Scorpions stripped of their independence.
They are openly striking at
the credibility of the judiciary and demanding that they have a veto over who is appointed judge *1 in Zuma’s
trial.
They have already discounted a guilty
verdict and made it plain that they will see Zuma as a martyr around whom
to mobilise in the event of such a verdict.
They are, in short, a few
steps away from power.
Which begs the question: what will they do when
the levers of the state are in their hands?
The answer ought to frighten those who cherish this democracy. It is not a
difficult scenario to sketch. The likely platform of such a presidency has
already been frequently aired in public it’s just that nobody has been paying
attention.
Zuma would be a heavily indebted
president. He would owe political favours to the curious alliance of ultra-left
and/or dishonest politicians who are pinning their hopes on his
ascendancy.
The first assault of a Zuma presidency would be on the
independent institutions of democracy, with the greatest effort going into the
destruction of the power of independent prosecution as exemplified by the
Scorpions. Zuma has already made it plain that he holds the Scorpions in
contempt.
Institutions such as SARS, which would threaten the
successfully prosecuted but newly rehabilitated elite, would find their
independence curtailed.
Parastatals would likely find themselves under
new and less independent management as the crony state takes
hold.
Credible, skilled persons holding office in such institutions would
flee to the private sector, or abroad.
This would, in turn, open the society to corruption on a massive scale. Without
the diminishing prospect of judicial consequences, the scale of graft and fraud
in the public and private sectors would escalate.
The populists have made
the delivery of services to the poor one of their causes, but, ironically,
service delivery would all but cease as the state machinery stuttered to a halt,
mired in corruption and bereft of skills. The poor would suffer, perhaps all the
more harshly because of the cloak of anti-poverty that the state would
wear.
Businesses needing to interact with the state would find themselves
forced into cronyism. Those that did not play along
would find themselves isolated.
The media, that part of it still willing
to expose and confront corruption, would find itself operating in a hostile
political environment.
Zuma would be indebted to the left; its new-found
populist leaders, such as Zwelinzima Vavi and Blade Nzimande, would be likely to
find their way into the Cabinet, where their anachronistic
economic fantasies could become reality.
Labour liberalisation is
likely to be reversed in favour of a highly regulated labour market in which job
protection would be further entrenched.
Against this background, the
disincentive to employ would increase.
Inflation targeting would be
abandoned in favour of the left’s frequently expressed desire for a low-interest
rate-led growth path.
The upshot of all of this would be a deterioration
in South Africa’s sovereign rating as global agencies re-rated the country’s
debt-worthiness.
This would increase the cost of capital for the state
and for state-owned enterprises which would diminish the resources available
for the delivery of services.
The poor, unable to enter the stratified
job market and without the support of efficient state agencies to deliver
welfare, health and education services, would eventually
rise up.
Political risk would increase and the state would find
itself without the institutional wherewithal or the political will to reverse
the trend.
South Africa would find itself unable to deal with a
collapsing Zimbabwe as the left asserted its agenda of economic
isolation.
The spectre of corruption past would haunt the head of state, who would be privately mocked by his peers as he assumed his seat on the world
stage.
South Africans who think the Zuma carry-on is an amusing piece of
showmanship, wake up. Your country is facing
ruin.
Hartley is deputy editor of the Sunday Times
With acknowledgements to Ray Hartley
and the Sunday Times.
*1 Get the strongest judge on the
Natal bench, skin colour irrelevant, plus two of the most credible and
experienced assessors in the land and hold that line - that's a lawful
order.