The consensus position in suburban SA is that, as president, Jacob Zuma “won’t be as bad as you think”. I hope I’m wrong but, on the evidence , I disagree.

There is an extremely good argument to be made that the African National Congress (ANC) is the right party to lead SA at this point in its history. But I feel that Zuma is a terrible choice as leader, especially now during an economic downturn.

I am shocked by the greasy insincerity about his candidacy among people who should know better. Start with the phraseology. The position that Zuma “will surprise you” or “won’t be as bad as you think” is what you often hear.

This is a fall-back position. It constitutes an attempt to brush over the obvious failings of Zuma as a person and as a leader with a kind of affected and strained optimism that is endemic . No one wants to be the first to notice that the king has no clothes.

Simon Jenkins, writing in the Guardian , admires the way Zuma toppled Thabo Mbeki, selected Kgalema Mot lanthe, supported Trevor Manuel and seeks to keep white business aboard.

But this isn’t true. The biggest role-player in Mbeki’s toppling was Mbeki himself ­ Zuma’s role was limited to volunteering to be the point man for the many enemies Mbeki gathered in his wake. This wasn’t a hard choice since Zuma’s alternative was to face corruption charges in court.

Neither was his support for Manuel a particularly tough call, since at that point the ANC was trying to stem a tidal wave of support potentially washing towards the Congress of the People.

Several of the arguments against Zuma as president are obvious; his misogyny is perverse and contrary to the stated policy of his party. What about the corruption charges? Let’s assume he’s an innocent victim of a conspiracy .

But if that’s the case, he shouldn’t have too much trouble demonstrating the conspiracy and any fair-minded judge would never convict him. His decision to try every conceivable legal loophole to stay out of court surely contradicts these claims.

I think there is one other big problem with Zuma ­ his get-along, go-along style of leadership. I might be misjudging him terribly, but he seems horribly indecisive for someone about to become president at a time of economic crisis. Obviously, he has made tough decisions in his past, and has been decisive at times. But I get an impression that he prefers to waft the way the wind is blowing and see where it takes him.

For example, let’s assume Zuma’s innocent of the corruption charges. But then what to make of all those payments by Schabir Shaik? *1 Wasn’t Zuma at least negligent in not ensuring that Shaik did not try to benefit from his political connections? Shouldn’t Zuma have considered it possible during the five years Shaik handed him money that this was not right?

It reminds me a bit of an argument recently in the US press about former president George Bush. During Bush’s election campaign against Al Gore, a lot was made in the US press of Gore’s tendency to sigh just before he started answering questions. Later, during Bush’s disastrous second term, journalists asked : shouldn’t we have listened more to the answers rather than fussing over Gore’s little foibles of expression?

I may be wrong. But it’s up to Zuma to prove us wrong and, until then, I think it’s an odd perversion to apologise for Zuma before he has an opportunity of attempting to do so.

• Last week, some figures on past election results that appeared in my column were mangled . Just to be clear: in 1994, the ANC got 12,8-million votes and in 2004 it got 10,9-million ­ a decline of 15,3%. The total poll dropped from 19,5-million to 15,6-million votes ­ a decline of 20%. Hence it appears a larger turnout may well assist the opposition, and vice versa .

With acknowledgements to Tim Cohen and Business Day.