Publication: Business Day Issued: Date: 2005-06-14 Reporter: Jacob Dlamini

ANC at SABC also Still Studying Shaik Judgment

 

Publication 

Business Day
Date 2005-06-14

Reporter

 Jacob Dlamini

Web Link

www.businessday.co.za

 

What on earth is going on at the Auckland Park branch of the African National Congress (ANC), otherwise known as the SABC newsroom?

Not only is the, er, public broadcaster haemorrhaging staff, it also seems to be at a loss about what to do about the Jacob Zuma saga, the most important story in postapartheid SA.

Could it be that SABC news commissar Snuki Zikalala is, like his principals in the ANC, at a loss over what to do about Zuma?

Since the verdict and sentence were announced in the Schabir Shaik trial more than two weeks ago, the ANC has issued two bland statements on the matter.

The first statement said the party had “noted” the judgment and was studying it. The second said the party had, er, “noted” the judgment and was studying it.

The ANC statements might seem banal but they amount to ANC-speak for “we don’t know what to do”. This is not surprising.

The Shaik judgment and Judge Hilary Squires’ indictment of Deputy President Zuma’s “generally corrupt relationship” with Shaik, his financial adviser, have split the ANC.

People are siding with either Zuma or President Thabo Mbeki and the organisation finds it difficult to speak with one voice on the issue. There is seemingly no one out there to give the party line. Hence the SABC’s tentative approach.

With no one to give him the party line, Zikalala is hedging his bets and sitting on the fence, lest he be accused by one of the many factions in the ANC of siding with either Zuma or Mbeki. He cannot risk that. He will probably wait to see which way the wind blows on the Zuma saga before he adopts the triumphant party line. That is how state broadcasters function.

That is what SABC News has become under Zikalala. But spare a thought for the poor man. It cannot be easy being a news commissar, especially when the party from which you take your cue is so divided and the levels of mistrust are so high.

You can’t talk to ANC people in government or the ANC itself without their checking whether your phone is “safe” or bugged.

It must be very difficult in a situation like that to come up with a party line. By their nature, party lines work when members of collectives hold on to them and believe them. They have to believe them so they can sound convincing when they repeat them to the world or to those who do not subscribe to a party line.

As news commissar, Zikalala determines the SABC’s line on stories. But he is also a party hack who must, as per his deployment by an ANC-dominated SABC board, push the party line at the SABC. This deployment business works on the assumption that there is a party line to push. But the model crashes when a party is so divided there is no obvious line. That is Zikalala’s dilemma.

How does one stay on top of the country’s biggest political story if one does not have a party line to guide one? How does one report on a story that has serious adverse implications for the ANC? What type of ANC is likely to emerge from this morass and how does one cover that?

These are questions journalists around the country are asking themselves at the moment. But they take on a particular currency when posed by a party hack who seemingly cannot take orders from his party because it does not know what to do.

Speak to senior ANC leaders and they will tell you that the Zuma affair is the most serious crisis the ANC has ever had to deal with. And this is a party that has had its share of troubles: from mutinies in its camps, defections from its ranks, infiltration by apartheid agents, leadership squabbles here and in exile, to the assassination of its leaders.

But none of these issues had as much potential to split the ANC down the middle as does the Zuma saga.

People are lining up on either side, campaigning and hoping their side will come out on top. You obviously do not want to back the wrong camp, because you might lose.

For individuals like Zikalala, who owe their well-paid jobs to political patronage, that could mean a loss of that job and whatever political access it gives them. Zikalala has been booted out of the SABC before. He would hate to see it happen again.

That is why the news coming out of Auckland Park on the Zuma saga is likely to be as bland as you will ever see. The public broadcaster, which acts like an ANC trumpet, is unlikely to tell us anything dramatic about the Zuma affair. Like the ANC itself, the Auckland Park branch of the ANC has, I suspect, noted the judgment and is studying it. It is likely to study it for as long as it takes the ANC to regroup and speak with one voice again. Only then will Zikalala know what the party line is … again.

Dlamini is political editor.

With acknowledgements to Jacob Dlamini and Business Day.