Introduction
Although South Africa's constitution limits tenure of office by the country's president to two terms, President Thabo Mbeki opted to stand for a third term as the leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in opposition to Jacob Zuma. The outcome, at the party's 52nd National Conference in Polokwane in December 2007, was victory for the latter, and humiliation for the former. Mbeki, whose term of office was due to expire at the latest by June 2009, now remained state president while having lost the confidence of his party. This culminated in his ‘recall’ by the ANC from the presidency in September 2008 following an opinion delivered in the High Court by Judge Christopher Nicholson that Mbeki had politically interfered with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and its investigative body, popularly known as the Scorpions, to ensure the prosecution of Zuma for corruption, fraud and tax evasion. Mbeki was succeeded as president by Kgalema Motlanthe, elected at Polokwane as party deputy president, Zuma not wanting to become president until after the forthcoming election in 2009.
Although the ANC claimed that party tradition did not allow for formal campaigning, the battle between Mbeki and Zuma had been visceral. The two men were fighting not only over power, but also over the ANC's ‘political project’, Zuma drawing much of his popular backing from the ANC's allies, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), which had long registered objection from the left towards Mbeki's pro-market economic strategy. Zuma was also fighting to stay out of jail because for a considerable period he had been fending off attempts by the NPA to prosecute him. These had come to a head in September 2005 when it was indicated in the High Court that he had been in a corrupt relationship with Mo Shaik, upon whom he was financially dependent, and whom Judge Hilary Squires proceeded to convict upon charges of corruption relating to the arms deal which the government had concluded with European arms companies in 1998. Mbeki proclaimed this situation as one which required him to ‘recall’ Zuma, then deputy president, from his state office.
Mbeki was widely hailed as striking a blow for constitutional propriety. Yet Zuma's dismissal was far from being unanimously popular. Within days the ANC's National Working Committee was to slap Mbeki down by confirming Zuma as party deputy president. Nonetheless, the NPA launched a high profile campaign to pursue Zuma through the courts, only for his lawyers to throw up one legal obstacle after another to moves to bring their client to trial. Zuma also received the vigorous support of the party's left, notably COSATU, whose secretary-general, Zwelinzima Vavi, had pronounced previously that efforts to stop Zuma from succeeding Mbeki as president of South Africa would be ‘like trying to fight against the big wave of the tsunami’ (Mail & Guardian Online, 7 March 2005).
Central to the left's campaign was that the NPA's attempts to prosecute Zuma were politically motivated. When Judge Nicholson backed this allegation in September 2008, the Zuma camp was triumphant. Zuma himself proclaimed that Mbeki should see out his second term, but the forces behind him were less conciliatory. Although the ANC's National Executive Committee (NEC) was divided, the majority that the Zuma camp had enjoyed on that body since Polokwane decided that Mbeki should be ‘recalled’ from the presidency.
The NEC was following the line that the party had ‘deployed’ Mbeki to the presidency and therefore had the right to recall him, although it recognised that constitutionally only Parliament had the authority to end a president's tenure of office before its legally constituted end – either by passing a vote of confidence, requiring a simple majority (which would necessitate the calling of a general election), or by a complex process of impeachment. Mbeki could have challenged the ANC to a battle in parliament. However, either steeped in the ways of the ANC, or reluctant to risk humiliation, he acceded to the NEC's instruction.
Even as spare an outline of the political drama as the above is likely to be contested. Certainly, there is widespread agreement that Zuma's ascent represents a watershed in South African democracy. In particular, Mbeki's dismissal triggered a significant defection from the ANC of those either loyal to Mbeki or offended by Zuma, and their formation of a new party, the Congress of the People (COPE), which sought to pose a significant electoral challenge to the ruling party. Nonetheless, apart from such generalities, there is a remarkable diversity of opinion about how Zuma's rise should be interpreted. This article is therefore devoted to identifying alternative interpretations of the ‘Zuma tsunami’, the extent to which they are compatible and the extent to which they clash.
Interpretations of the ‘Zuma Tsunami’
Any interpretation of the ‘Zuma tsunami’ is perilous. Considered academic assessments are few, in contrast to a mega-flow of media analysis. Nonetheless, some eight perspectives appear to have taken root, some striking out clearly along branches of their own, others distinctive yet intimately entangled.
The Overthrow of Mbeki as a Restoration of Democracy
The first interpretation celebrates the triumph of South Africa in dispensing with a sitting president through political rather than unconstitutional means. At one level, this is located in a comparative African framework, contrasting Mbeki's fall with the obduracy of Kibaki in Kenya and Mugabe in Zimbabwe, both of whom clung to power in 2008 in the face of adverse elections (Southall2008a). At another, it points to the saliency of the constitution, not least in the manner in which the fate of Mbeki was significantly determined by the courts (Southall2008b).
The perspective is sustained by two further dimensions. First, there is the insightful portrayal of Mbeki's end as constituting a political and a personal tragedy. This interpretation is most strongly associated with Mark Gevisser, who has suggested that in updating his biography of Mbeki (Gevisser2007), he will be writing ‘a fifth act, perhaps of a Shakespearean tragedy, in which a courageous and very brilliant man has been unable to overcome his fatal flaws’ (Gevisser2008a). Mbeki had come to the presidency with a mission of modernising both South Africa and the ANC. Furthermore, he had come to believe that a Zuma presidency would be disastrous, and that it was his duty to stop it. Yet in his psychological insecurities he had alienated many within the ANC, and surrounded himself with sycophants who had weaved together an ‘edifice of bad intelligence’ that glued denialism together. He had therefore ignored the signs that, in the build-up to Polokwane, it was time for him to go. ‘Not only because he saw himself as a king … but [because] the ANC had made him into a king, … the only way to move on was by decapitating him’ (Star, 22 February 2008). Polokwane thus constituted ‘a regicide’ (Gevisser2008a).
For Mbeki, there was a large element of personal hurt because the ANC had been the only family he had ever really had. At Polokwane, he was to feel that he had not only been fired, but ‘cast out’ (Gevisser2008a). Hence when he was ‘recalled’ from the presidency, his resignation speech proclaimed his dismay that he had been treated in an undignified manner not befitting the traditions of the political family he knew (Gevisser2008b). There was also irony, for unlike his hero Coriolanus, who after his banishment from Rome had raised an army to vanquish his enemies, Mbeki would never want to be remembered for having collapsed ‘the old struggle hegemony’ of the ANC. However, his authoritarian rule had done precisely that, and had created the conditions for the emergence of COPE, presenting a real choice other than the ANC for the majority of black voters.
The second dimension, proffered most strongly from within the Zuma camp, stresses the freedom that has come from the overthrow of a dictator. Not many would go as far as Malegapuru Makgoba, the erratic vice-chancellor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, who has condemned Mbeki as no better than Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe and Mobutu Sese Seko (Sunday Independent, 13 July 2008). Nonetheless, they exult in the idea of the restoration of internal democracy within the ANC. Gevisser(2008a) cites Cyril Ramaphosa, notoriously sidelined by Mbeki, as proclaiming Polokwane ‘a breath of fresh air’. Equally, struggle veteran Mac Maharaj has presented Polokwane as having ‘breathed life’ into South African politics. Bystanders were transformed into participants, fear was gone and people were now saying what they liked. For his part, Zuma was a victim of Mbeki's machinations and ‘a symbol of those who felt marginalised and isolated’ (Star, 22 February 2008).
Polokwane is also presented as a return to the more open ANC of Mandela. For Ngoako Ramatlhodi (former premier of Limpopo), the move away from this halcyon state was orchestrated by Mbeki, finding its most vicious expression in the open attack made upon the movement's iconic former president at a meeting of the NEC in 2002, at which Mandela had complained about fear pervading the party. Those who had attacked Mandela had been genuinely fearful of Mbeki, who ‘had become larger than the movement’. Eventually, ‘it had become our revolutionary duty to defend the revolution’ (Ramatlhodi2008).
The problem with such approaches is that they miss so much out: Gevisser's focus upon the person of Mbeki subordinates the wider context, while the latter approach is too partial. For example, while Ramaphosa has long standing grievances against Mbeki, Maharaj and Ramatlhodi have themselves received the attention of the National Prosecuting Authority concerning allegations of corruption. In other words, while Mbeki's overthrow may indeed herald ‘a second transition’ (Gevisser2008a), the motive forces behind it appear to be more ambiguous than this interpretation suggests. However, the article now turns to a related narrative which, if not heroic, is at least cautiously optimistic.
The Tsunami as Rebellion from Below Led by COSATU and the SACP
A second perspective views the overthrow of Mbeki as principally a triumph of the poor and dispossessed, specifically via mobilisation of support for Zuma within ANC structures by COSATU and the SACP. From this standpoint, the organised left has not only asserted itself but stands to exert significant influence upon a Zuma Government in favour of a more collectivist, pro-poor programme.
The argument has been most unambiguously put forward by Webster, who has depicted COSATU and the SACP as ‘the elephant in the room’ at Polokwane, exerting a determining influence over events, but never formally visible. ‘Neither had voting rights, but both organisations were at the centre of the challenge’ (Webster2008, p. 7), both having felt marginalised within the Alliance from as far back as 1996. Webster locates COSATU and the SACP as having placed themselves at the head of a rebellion from below. It was through Zuma, who had proved able to articulate multiple and often contradictory leanings that appealed to a range of groupings, that a social movement of the excluded had expressed their shared sense of moral indignation about the neoliberal modernisation project of Mbeki.
Depth to Webster's argument has been provided by Ceruti(2008), who identifies three nodes of support behind Zuma. The first features an ethnic dimension, revealed by a survey of Zuma supporters in Soweto, whereby support for Zuma was strongest amongst people whose mother-tongue was either Zulu or Ndebele (Ceruti2007, p. 47). The second revolved around a sense of exclusion that came to a head prior to the local government elections of 2005, when township residents all over South Africa took to the streets in protest against failures of service delivery (Ceruti2008, p. 110), and translated into pressure upon ANC local councillors. The third challenge came from the unions, which were bearing the burdens of retrenchments, unemployment and wage restraint, expressed by a COSATU stay away from work by 2 million people in June 2005. This was preceded by 14 days by Zuma's dismissal as deputy president. ‘Vavi perceived the suspension as a direct attack on the unions’, and although Zuma's worker credentials were thin, when COSATU highlighted him as another of Mbeki's victims, his name became synonymous ‘with the imagery of resistance to inequality’ (Ceruti2008, p. 111).
COSATU's strategy has been further analysed by Sikwebu(2007), who traces how the federation campaigned to influence the outcome of Polokwane from the time of its own national congress in September 2006. At that occasion, having recorded that the ANC had shifted from an earlier working-class bias ‘as adopted in its Morogoro Congress in 1969’, COSATU resolved that Polokwane presented an opportunity for the working class to reassert its leadership of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). This required first developing a programme to unite the liberation movement; and second, identifying an ANC leadership that could best pursue the interests of the working class. Thereafter, and notably around the ANC's policy conference in June 2007, COSATU produced detailed responses to draft ANC documents, and dispersed these to its members to promote in ANC branches. These featured a return to the demands of the Freedom Charter, an end to commodified service delivery, and programmes aimed at ending unemployment and poverty. In addition, they demanded that a political centre drawn from the ANC, COSATU and the SACP should determine policy and deployment to government and the state.
Sikwebu, writing before Polokwane, was uncertain as to the outcome, yet was doubtful as to its long-term viability. In particular, he claims that COSATU has failed to develop an understanding of the role of political parties in post-independence situations. Rather than adopting policies that would significantly empower voters and democratic institutions, COSATU opted for resolutions that would work to reinforce the status of the ANC as a ‘cartel party’ whose principal role after 1994 had been to manage voter expectations and pass policy making to regulatory bodies insulated from the electorate. In short, Sikwebu implied that COSATU's capturing control of the ANC would change little or nothing.
In contrast, Webster, while acknowledging dangers of populism, suggests that Polokwane opens up the possibility of greater social inclusion and popular participation. His optimism has in some measure been endorsed by Butler(2008), who interprets Polokwane as the ‘second communist coup’ of the post-apartheid ANC. The first, in 1991, had seen the edging out of a hard-line exile faction in control of the organisation by a new left axis, comprising leaders of COSATU and the United Democratic Front with certain exile cadres from the SACP. The successes of the left axis included the National Union of Mineworkers' Cyril Ramaphosa's election as Secretary-General of the ANC, and the ousting of Mbeki from centrality in the transitional negotiation process. However, the exile right reconstituted its hold on power through new alliances with internal conservatives, while Mbeki's rise marginalised popular constituencies and instituted a sharp division between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. It was the latter who linked up with wider constituencies, inclusive latterly of the former Mbeki ally Jacob Zuma, to achieve the triumph of the left at Polokwane. Thus it was that this ‘second communist coup’ saved the ANC from itself, from the exclusive authoritarian tendencies of Mbeki. Even so, Butler presents the left's triumph as ironic, for rather than launching South Africa upon a path to socialism, historians are likely to look back at Polokwane as having rescued liberal democracy.
This second perspective as a democratic thrust headed by COSATU and the SACP offers considerable historical and sociological insight. However, it is lacking in at least three regards. First, it provides little in the way of evidence of how COSATU and the SACP managed to secure control of the ANC on the ground. While it is assumed that militants battled their way into office from the ANC branch level upwards, we as yet await detailed case studies. Second, there is something of an unwarranted assumption of COSATU and SACP internal unity, when it seems that there was considerable dissonance within both organisations. Third, there is a failure to elaborate the actual relationship between COSATU and SACP, rendering their distinct roles in the making of the tsunami opaque.
The Tsunami as a Communist Putsch
This next perspective constitutes a right-wing variant of the preceding one, distinguished by its assertion of the role of the SACP. Thus according to Ken Owen(2008a), Polokwane saw ‘2,300 disciplined cadres organised mainly by COSATU and the SA Communist Party’ impose a party oligarchy upon the country. ‘Henceforth, policy was to be set, and political control exercised, by 80 apparatchiks meeting in secret conclave’, even though they still needed Zuma ‘naive and pliable’, to head the government. Polokwane was thus
a putsch in which a gang of communists and criminals imposed on the country an overweening vanguard party … the SA Communist Party's long-planned “second stage of revolution” is now close to being accomplished.(Owen2008b)
The ‘communist takeover’ is seen as having two major implications. First, it is viewed as presenting threats to the constitution. The most immediate issue post-Polokwane was whether there was to be just one (the ANC) or two (the partyand the state) ‘centres of power’, the substantive issue being whether Mbeki, as president, retained autonomy, or whether he had to take instructions from Luthuli House, the ANC's headquarters. His ‘recall’ from the presidency was, by this token, evidence of the party having imposed its supremacy, with Motlanthe replacing Mbeki as ‘just another poodle’ (Mthombothi2008b). Inherent in this interpretation was the notion that the ANC had vanquished the supremacy of parliament, with the ANC caucus simply processing instructions from the top (this ignoring the fact that government leaders in parliamentary systems who lose their parties customarily resign without taking their fate to the legislature). Meanwhile, the putsch thesis also fed into wider concerns that the post-Polokwane ANC was determined to go to anti-democratic lengths to protect Zuma from prosecution.
The second fear was that the ‘putsch’ would lead to ‘a sharp turn to the left’, notably by increasing state intervention in the economy and undermining Mbeki's fiscal discipline. Although it was recognised that, as president, global pressures would force Zuma to perform a balancing act between conservative and radical positions within the ANC (for support for Mbeki's macro-economic caution had not melted away), ‘Nzimande's and Mantashe's influential roles’ would now be in ‘stark contrast with their virtual isolation from the levers of power under Mbeki's presidency’ (Naidoo2008). COSATU and SACP were seen as attempting to formalise their greater influence through their conclusion of an ‘alliance pact’ backed up by their direct ex-officio representation on the ANC's NEC where they would not be bound by ANC decisions. In addition, both bodies would put up individuals for the ANC's election list who, after election, would be accountable first to COSATU and the SACP, and only after that to the ANC (Paton2008a). Zuma had become a ‘prisoner’ of the left (Mothombothi 2008c).
The problem with such analyses was that they were based upon conjecture. Indeed they were to be contradicted by Mantashe himself, who was reported as insisting that the ANC, not the Alliance, would remain the centre of power. In any case, COSATU and the SACP would be limited to sharing only 20 per cent of the places on the ANC's election lists with bodies such as the Youth and Women's Leagues. Clearly, analysis of the actual extent of left influence within the Zuma ANC cannot be presumed by the mere presence of COSATU and SACP personnel in high places. Even so, for all its exaggeration, the ‘communist putsch’ does raise legitimate questions about the relationship between the SACP and COSATU, and their role in making the tsunami. In addition, it also demands clearer specification of their relationships with other elements of the pro-Zuma coalition.
The Tsunami as a ‘Coalition of the Aggrieved’
The ANC has always been conceived of as a ‘broad church’ spanning the different classes among the racially oppressed in league with other elements committed to non-racial democracy. Within this context, party documentation pays obeisance to the leading role within the NDR of the black, especially African, working class, yet care is taken, nonetheless, to promote the idea of the ANC as ‘a home for all’. It is therefore unsurprising that, while the tsunami can be presented as a ‘revolt from below’, it can also be portrayed as a ‘coalition of the aggrieved’. From this perspective, there is a significant sense in which Mbeki brought his fall upon himself. At one level, his ‘responsible’ economic policies were never going to appeal to the left and the poor. More particularly, his rule had consistently alienated his power base: ‘He isolated various powerful individuals to the point of victimisation; insisted on appointing premiers and directors-general from the centre; and refused to reshuffle his cabinet, thus shutting out new blood and sheltering incompetence’, as well as treating backbench ANC MPs as ‘voting cattle’ (Financial Mail, 26 September 2008). In consequence, ambitious ANC members who remained outside his favoured circle looked around for other avenues of advancement. No wonder that they congregated around Zuma in a loose coalition for deposing Mbeki!
As already noted, COSATU and the SACP are consistently viewed as the leading elements of the Zuma coalition. But Gumede(2008) identifies three other groups as crucial. First, the ANC Youth League; second, pro-Zuma black economic empowerment (BEE) oligarchs hoping to secure future patronage; and third, ANC leaders under investigation for corruption who hope that if Zuma's case is quashed, theirs will be too. Friedman(2008) throws in for good measure ‘part of the KwaZulu-Natal ANC elite, former intelligence operatives who served under [Zuma], and politicians who were sidelined by Mbeki’. Diverse elements can also be added, such as veterans of Umhonto we Sizwe, and the new leadership of the ANC's Women's League. Suffice it here to focus upon the three groups identified by Gumede.
Traditionally the ANCYL has modelled itself upon the Young Lions of 1948 who replaced the then conservative ANC leadership with the radical generation of Tambo and Mandela. They are therefore regularly presented as ‘king-makers’ in any change of national ANC leadership, their leaning being towards the most ‘militant’ and ‘revolutionary’ candidates. Consequently, in the build up to the ANCYL national conference in April 2008, the Youth League was viewed as being divided between not Mbeki vs. Zuma factions, but two pro-Zuma factions, the one being more stridently behind him than the other. The so-called Mbalula faction, named after outgoing president Fikile Mbalula, wanted the organisation's provincial secretary, Julius Malema, to assume the leadership; the alternative Zikalala group, named after the outgoing secretary-general, wanted the league's national organiser, Saki Mofokeng. The latter group was said to be more diverse, and to include people who ranged from those who supported Mbeki's bid for a third term to business people (the ANC's definition of youth extending up to 30 years of age). Ultimately, it was Malema who emerged as victorious and whose slate achieved a clean sweep-out of Mbeki supporters from the League's national executive (Mail & Guardian, 20–27 March, 4–10 April, 4–10 July 2008). Subsequently, Malema was to repay the refusal of Luthuli House to re-run the elections (following protests about irregularities by the losing faction) by the militance of his pro-Zuma statements. Whilst attracting outraged comment from the media and various established figures within the ANC, Malema is said to be popular with working class (The Weekender, 22–23 November 2008). Malema has also played a key role in forging linkages with, notably, MK Military Veterans.
Mbeki is celebrated as the principal champion of BEE, yet Zuma has attracted significant support from this constituency. To understand this, it is necessary to appreciate that black business is by no means homogeneous, being made up of large-scale moguls and more modest entrepreneurs, and those with closer and more distant ties to the ANC. It is therefore important to be wary of blanket statements that a Zuma presidency will see one set of business people who are at present politically connected replaced by those with better contacts with the new ANC leadership (Johwa2008). Although this has a kernel of truth, it proffers too sharp a distinction between ‘ins’ and ‘outs’. Business typically displays a willingness to deal with the ruling powers whoever they may be. Today, there is evidence that black moguls who rose to prominence under Mbeki are switching their support to Zuma. Principal amongst these is Tokyo Sexwale, chairman of the major mining company Mvelaphanda Holdings. Prior to Polokwane, Sexwale had thrown his hat into the ring, hoping to emerge as a compromise candidate for the leadership.
When this bid failed, he switched his support to Zuma. Other openly pro-Zuma moguls include Johnny Copelyn and Marcel Golding of the multi-billion rand trade union investment company Hoskens Consolidated Investments, while co-funding of the ANCYL conference by Patrice Motsepe, chairman of African Rainbow Minerals, with Sexwale (and others) suggests someone keen to sustain his political credentials (Paton2008b,Mail & Guardian, 19–25 May 2008).
There are four other overlapping groups. First, there are those businesspersons who have always been close to Zuma, some of them (such as Don Mkhwananzi, a key player in the Black Management Forum and Sandile Zungu, Chairman of Zungu Investments) who have their roots in KwaZulu-Natal soil. Second, there are some who, although having initially prospered during the Mbeki era, subsequently found themselves excluded from the circle securing government-related deals. These include Jayendra Naidoo and Jay Naidoo, former trade unionists who distanced themselves from GEAR (the latter having previously held ministerial responsibility for the implementation of the RDP). They had gone on to form the J&J group, a broad-based empowerment group, which in 2005 had lost out on the purchase of 15 per cent of Telkom when US and Malaysian shareholders sold their stake to a consortium packed with ANC heavyweights. Sandile Zungu similarly lost out when Transnet backed out of a deal to sell its large holding of shares in MTN to a consortium of which he was a member. Third, there are those who, while having done well enough without close connections to government, felt disadvantaged by the Mbeki-era pecking order (Paton2008b). Fourth, Zuma is reaching out to the Indian business community, with Vivian Reddy, a Durban-based tycoon with major interests in casinos and shopping malls, a key financial backer (Business Day, 9 March 2008). Collectively, these groups constitute formidable business backing for Zuma, expressed by significant financial backing for the ANC election campaign: R30 million was raised at a dinner in Johannesburg and R11 million from local business in a Zuma tour of the Northern Cape (Business Day, 6 November 2008,Star, 17 November 2008).
Gumede's third major group is that of the criminal and corrupt. He would seem to be pointing to a number of the post-Polokwane ANC NEC who have had serious criminal convictions upheld against them (Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Tony Yengeni), inclusive of the notorious ‘Travelgate’ scam whereby MPs defrauded the parliamentary travel scheme (Ruth Bhengu, Ndleleni Duma). Others are under investigation for criminal acts, some of these for alleged involvement in tendering scams (Ngoako Ramathlodi, Angie Motsheka, Sibongile Manana) (Mail & Guardian, 18–25 January 2008). While it is difficult to argue that Zuma is any more inclined to cohabit with the morally dubious than Mbeki (who, notoriously, shielded Chief of Police Jackie Selebi from investigation for apparent linkages to organised crime), this category nonetheless poses awkward questions about the moral character of a new party leadership headed by an individual who was facing some 783 criminal charges involving fraud, corruption and racketeering. It would seem to suggest that the Zuma-led ANC is unlikely to move beyond the decline in its financial probity which was openly deplored by Motlanthe when still general secretary (Southall2008c).
Overall, the notion of the ‘coalition of the aggrieved’ argues a more politically fluid backing behind Zuma than those interpretations highlighting the primacy of the left. From this perspective, the coalition is not merely disparate but incoherent, united less in policy terms than in its desire to get rid of Mbeki. While Zuma is perceived as performing a balancing act, he is also seen as the glue holding the alliance together.
The Tsunami as Populist
The notion of the Zuma tsunami as ‘populist’ is characterised first by suggestions of a personality cult around Zuma, his appeal to the poor, and his efforts to appeal simultaneously to diverse elements of the population, regardless of contradictions this might embody; and second, by concerns that the mobilisation of support behind him holds inherent dangers to constitutionalism and democracy. As this second thrust suggests, the use of the term ‘populist’ is overwhelmingly negative in its connotations, implying that those susceptible to populism are driven by emotion, attracted by demagogic promises that are unlikely to be fulfilled. From this perspective, populism is not only likely to serve as a ploy by manipulative elites, but also likely to veer off in a politically authoritarian direction (Sitas2008).
The ‘populist’ approach builds upon the notion of a coalition of ‘the aggrieved’, yet emphasises Zuma's capacity to breach the gap between ANC elites and the poor that opened up under Mbeki. In part, this is ascribed to the marked contrast in style and personality of the two men. Mbeki is portrayed as intellectual, aloof, uncomfortable in anything but a dark suit, and awkward amongst ordinary people. In contrast, Zuma is presented as ‘charismatic’, open, uncomplicated and as happy in a leopard skin as in the trappings of the elite. While Mbeki aspires to being ‘pan-African’, Zuma, the polygamist, is more uncomplicatedly ‘African’. Zuma is also viewed as a master of political theatre which appeals to ‘the masses’, his rallies a colourful mixture of homilies, parables, dancing and song.
Furthermore, Zuma is presented as appealing to diverse constituencies. At one level, this is viewed positively. In contrast with their perceived political exclusion under Mbeki, Zuma is celebrated for his courting of Afrikaners and poor white people. Similarly, his direct appeals to African indigenous churches are seen as seeking conservative backing to counter the left. Against this, he is also portrayed as both a ‘chameleon’ and not fully in control of his own coalition: Zuma, ‘has neither the finesse to pretend that he has any principles, nor the Machiavellian understanding – necessary in any cynical politician – that insincerity can only be sustained by consistency’. In short, ‘he's an empty shell, an opportunist. … prepared to do or say whatever his minders or paymasters [i.e. the left] want him to’ (Financial Mail, 7 March 2008). Such a man, not surprisingly, now heads a party which is ‘fast sinking into a morass of sycophancy, cultism, populism and hooliganism’ (du Preez2008).
Such analysis rests heavily upon the notion of the collapse of the values of the ‘old ANC’. Traditionally, the strength of the party was that it had been able to hold populist tendencies in check (Paton and Mabanga2008, p. 34). However, Zuma's ascendancy has opened Pandora's box, giving rise to a style and content of politics which is not merely vulgar and disrespectful of party traditions, but explicitly dangerous to democracy and the constitution. Encouraged by Zuma's praise songLethu Mshini Wami (‘Bring me my machine gun’), this most notoriously surfaced in statements by both Youth League and COSATU leaders, notably Malema and Vavi, that they would ‘kill for Zuma’. Even if merely a metaphor, these were widely deemed politically irresponsible. Yet most concern has been aroused by attacks launched by leading members of the ANC against the judiciary following adverse judgements against Zuma, the most notorious of which was Mantashe's labelling members of the Constitutional Court ‘counter-revolutionary’ (a slogan backed up by similar statements by the ANCYL, SACP and COSATU) (e.g. Louw2008). For all that the resulting uproar propelled Mantashe and others to claim misquotation, such statements were widely viewed as evidence of the ANC's preparedness to go to unwarranted lengths to protect Zuma from prosecution, as well as of its disrespect for the constitution. With Mbeki's rule having already promoted the dominance of party over the state, the prospects under Zuma are now seen as ‘truly frightening’ (Leon2008). Meanwhile, Zuma himself has done nothing to quell such fears by making statements which, in appealing to conservative audiences regarding capital punishment, homosexuals and curbing youthful sexual behaviour, appear to contradict the values of the constitution.
Ultimately, the overwhelming concern about ANC populism is that it will reap a political whirlwind (Sparks2008). This fear has been expressed most potently by Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer:
To me, Zuma is the ultimate dangerous politician. When you hear him ranting and calling for his machine gun, I think of Hitler in the Munich beer hall. We have all these poor, unemployed people and someone who promises you the moon. You believe him because there is nothing else to believe. Perhaps if he reaches office, Zuma will have learned things. He is a clever man. But then, the Germans had great intellect and they swallowed Nazism(cited by Bills2008).
‘A “Loota” Continua’: the Tsunami as the Struggle for Resources
Moeletsi Mbeki views ANC policies under his brother's government as having done little to transform the fundamentals of apartheid political economy. The ANC may now control the state, but the state is subordinate to white capital. The ANC has enabled politicians to get into business through BEE, yet the government has very little power, so people are fighting over ‘crumbs’. The new ANC leadership find themselves in a quandary. They want to preserve largely intact the economic system they inherited which allows them to draw financial benefits; on the other hand, they hanker for change that will ameliorate growing inequalities. The danger is therefore that the party will become susceptible to interventions by ambitious individuals ‘such as Zuma’ who, while not promoting social change, will pursue witch hunts against those labelled wrongdoers. Instability within the ANC will therefore be from financial rather than ideological motivation, as marginal groups see government as a vehicle to gain easy access to state finances. Meanwhile, because educated black people opt for work in the private sector, it is the uneducated within the trade unions and SACP who aspire to positions within government. It can be predicted that, in the wake of the 2009 election, there will be an exodus of qualified people from public positions, leaving the state to those who have no education, reinforcing the country's downward spiral (Mbeki2008).
ANC stalwart Raymond Suttner(2008) agrees. There was no programmatic difference between the winners and losers at Polokwane: the struggle was ‘a battle for loot’ between those who sought to benefit from continued Mbeki rule as opposed to those who sought to win out under Zuma. COSATU and SACP leaders dogged Zuma's heels to share the applause that greeted him as the ‘deliverer’.
Support for this thesis is offered by multiple battles that have taken place within the ANC after Polokwane, notably at provincial and local levels. Struggles have been around deployment of individuals to positions and chains of procurement, and have involved extensive fraud, violence, intimidation and even assassination. Mbeki had acquired powers to appoint provincial premiers and municipal mayors, but the revolt against presidential centralisation at Polokwane had seen these devolve to party structures. Henceforth, provincial executive committees (PECs) would put forward three candidates for premier, one of whom would be selected by the NEC. Likewise, regional executive committees would put forward three mayoral candidates for each municipality in their region, one of which would be appointed by the PEC. The outcome was numerous attempts to eject various premiers and mayors from office, the immediate motivation being that they were identified as pro-Mbeki.
There were major struggles for party position within six provinces where provincial conferences had not been held in the run up to Polokwane. Following the conference, it was now expected that those elected provincial chairs would become premiers after the 2009 election. In Limpopo, Premier Sello Moloto, who had rallied behind Mbeki, faced a campaign to displace him by Youth League-led Zuma supporters and lost his provincial chairpersonship. In Northern Cape, pro-Zuma Provincial Chairperson John Block faced down competition from Provincial Secretary Neville Mompati, and imposed party control over the Mbeki-appointed Premier Dipuo Peters. In Mpumalanga, pro-Mbeki Thabang Makweta retained his premiership, but lost out in party contest to pro-Zuma Provincial Agriculture Minister David Mabuza. Similar struggles took place in North West State and Free State. For the moment, the majority of Mbeki's appointees as premier retained their state positions. However, a major factor keeping them in their jobs was the fear of the national leadership that if provincial power plays were allowed to result in their ejection, they would defect to COPE.
Only two pro-Mbeki premiers actually lost their position, in both cases because the NEC feared that their continuation would endanger the party's performance in the 2009 elections. In Eastern Cape, Nosimo Balindlela was ‘recalled’ following strong demands by COSATU and the SACP and replaced by Provincial Minister for Economic Affairs, Mbulelo Sogoni. In Western Cape, the ANC was deeply divided into factions under Premier Ebrahim Rasool and Mcebesi Skwatsha which appealed to coloured and African party supporters respectively. The NEC intervened to forge unity by appointing Lynn Brown, Provincial Minister for Finance, as premier. Elsewhere, even where provinces were strongly behind Zuma, as in KwaZulu-Natal, there were brutal battles for party ascendancy (Star 15 March, 21 July 2008,Mail & Guardian, 28 March–3 April, 11–17 July, 7–13 November 2008,Sunday Independent, 15 June, 20 July 2008).
Numerous battles also took place at local level. In the Western Cape, struggles were particularly vicious, reflecting the schism between Rasool and Skwatshwa, the two factions reputedly well funded by supporters in business. In Boland region, for example, the pro-Skwatsha faction was replaced by a Rasool-supporting one, which subsequently supplied the mayor of Worcester with names of people they wanted him to appoint, and instructions to restructure the procurement unit and reverse tenders already awarded. In Paarl, the mayor was fired from the ANC to unseat her in the council, only for the pro-Skwatsha PEC to suspend the regional executive. At a meeting called by the PEC to explain their decision, Skwatsha was stabbed (Paton2008c). Although such cases are not directly linked to the major fault-lines within the ANC, they suggest how divisions around control of resources relate to shadowy chains of influence and authority (Paton2008c). ‘People’, indicated a mayor of Kimberley who stood down for fear of assassination, want municipalities ‘to be their ATMs’ (Paton2008d).
The extent of resource-driven factionalism within the ANC appears to be far-reaching. However, having to put out fires across 284 municipalities, 52 party regions and nine provinces, the ANC leadership would be hard pressed to impose integrity on all. But the real problem would seem to be not so much a lack of regulation, as the party's unifying mission of liberation having been replaced by its turning into an instrument of office, power, tenders and jobs (Mthombeni 2008d). Yet what happens when the wells of patronage run dry?
The Tsunami as the Decline of the Liberation Movement
Giliomeeet al.(2001) present the ANC as driven by an ‘historical project’ of ‘liberation’, as well as the notion of a party-state whereby cadres are deployed to key positions in the public service. The combination of these factors has been the centralisation of decision making, politicisation of the public service and erosion of the independence of supposedly neutral institutions such as the national broadcaster and the judiciary. However, a variant of this approach proposes that, rather than the ANC having imposed a quasi totalitarianism, it has transmogrified from a liberation movement into a party of patronage. Once centred around ideals, today it revolves around an internal struggle for jobs, privileges, procurements and perks. Under Mbeki, it became a party of ‘ins’ and ‘outs’, resentment amongst the latter fuelled by the President's personal appointment of ministers, senior civil servants, premiers and mayors, and by their exclusion from the small circle of cronies who were favoured under BEE. It was this that shaped the power struggle between Mbeki and Zuma, and the breakaway of defeated malcontents into COPE (Laurence2008a, Sparks2008).
The story is presented as having a peculiarly South African dimension, with the trajectory of the ANC after 1994 akin to that of the National Party (NP) after 1948. The NP's demise was preceded by an embourgeoisement of the party's elite, the decay of its moral values, a loss of its sense of mission, and the defection of its right wing into the Conservative Party in 1982. Similarly, today, the ANC elite has become aligned to large-scale capital, mired in corruption and distanced from the ethos of past struggles, with the formation of COPE indicating its inability to keep its broad support together. Furthermore, the ANC's problems are amplified by economic liberalisation alongside the revolution in international connectivity. It took 30 years for the Kenya African National Union to lose its grip on the electorate, but only 20 years for the same fate to befall ZANU-PF. In contrast, the ANC is confronting popular disillusionment within just 15 years (Laurence2008b).
Ironically, the thrust of such interpretations is sometimes optimistic, arguing that the ANC's troubles are good for democracy. Major revolutions elsewhere, argues Tilley, have resulted in human disaster. During its years of struggle, a revolutionary movement needs to confront a ruthless enemy through iron discipline that seals ideological differences. Slogans, songs and solidarity bind the masses to the movement, which by posing as the representative of the nation and harbinger of freedom ensures unity against the oppressor. Yet victory renders this obsolete, for now the party stops serving its great cause and begins to serve itself. Promotions are made for loyalty not ability, while corruption soaks throughout the party. In response, popular disillusionment leads to protest and criticism, but this in turn is repudiated as counter-revolutionary. Fourteen years after their revolutions, blood-soaked France had an emperor, the Soviet victory had morphed into the gulag, and Mao's China was in the grip of the Cultural Revolution. In closer proximity, the promise of national liberation in Zimbabwe has plunged into authoritarianism, economic collapse and humanitarian disaster. ‘In contrast, South Africa is facing this same post-revolutionary crisis merely in the form of a major party split’. It is thus entirely to the ANC's credit that COPE is invoking the historic values of the ANC (Tilley2008).
However, this raises the issue of whether the new leadership is capable of implementing necessary reform. Much would seem to depend upon the quality of leadership, a matter of considerable concern to key party elders.
The Tsunami as a Failure of Leadership
The formation of COPE is an outcome of Mbeki's removal from the presidency. Yet not all who deplored his dismissal have departed for the new party. Some are locked into patronage networks and others are sitting on the fence, yet there are also those bemoan the party's present condition and worry for its future. Their concerns have been expressed by individuals who profess loyalty to the ANC rather than to either Mbeki or Zuma.
There is amongst this group an acknowledgement of the crisis afflicting the ANC. Ben Turok(2008a), a long-term party servant, has written of ‘our once proud liberation movement’ being marked by ‘division, threats and abuse’, with the formation of COPE by ‘respected leaders’ being a result of ‘deterioration in our democratic culture and the stifling of dissenting voices’. Similarly, Jabu Molekete, who resigned both as Deputy Minister of Finance and from parliament after Mbeki's removal from the presidency, views the ANC as having entered ‘a man-made winter’ (Forde2008).
Such internal critics recognise that the thrust behind Mbeki's unseating was driven, in part at least, by generational change, just as Mandela and Tambo replaced their predecessors and as the infusion of black consciousness activists into the party during the 1970s brought fresh blood and new ideas. Yet they deplore the crudity of the present leadership cohort of the Youth League. Zola Skwewiya, the highly respected Minister of Social Development who stayed in his position after September 2008, was especially critical. Remarking that a resurrected Tambo would recoil from the ANC's present condition, he has spoken particularly upon the disrespect shown to Mbeki by Youth Leaguers. He has also singled out Julius Malema as an ‘embarrassment’, a ‘child’ and ‘unAfrican’, while the attacks made upon the judiciary he labels as ‘painful’ (Business Day, 28 September 2008). Skwewiya's complaints were reiterated by earlier leaders of the ANCYL who have deplored not merely the behaviour of the current leadership crop but their replacement of an ethos of service with that of ‘the pursuit of business and self-advancement’ (Forrest2008).
Despite their being unenthusiastic about Zuma's leadership, these critics find themselves unable to contemplate leaving the ANC. For some, like Moleketi, disillusion extends to a decision not to campaign for the party. For Turok, the ANC – for all its faults – remains the principal locus of progressive tendencies, for which a breakaway from the mainstream organisation represents many dangers. For Pallo Jordan, who disagreed openly with the decision to remove Mbeki, COPE is little more than a vehicle of those who have lost power, patronage and resources.
For these individuals, the ANC's condition represents a chronic failure of the ‘core leadership’. Jordan blames the NEC (of which he is a member) for failing to contain the tensions that led to COPE's breakaway, describing discussions within the party as a ‘dialogue of the deaf’. The ANC was a broad group of people with conflicting interests, yet failed to contain the contradictions. Similarly, for Moleketi, the ANC's capacity for self-correction has gone, wrecked upon the rocks of self-interest (Forde2008).
In this final interpretation there are echoes of the first, with Polokwane being viewed as an assertion of internal democracy (even if the style of its expression was regrettable). Jordan, for example, has warned Zuma that what happened to Mbeki could happen to him if he loses touch with the party membership (Mbanjwa2008). However, while Turok(2008b) has issued an extended plea for a return to the socially inclusive economics of the RDP, there is little of anything substantial emanating from these critics than implied calls for better leadership and a return to established values if the organisation's crisis is to be addressed.
Conclusion: Assessing the ‘Zuma Tsunami’
This overview has sketched out eight different ways in which the ‘Zuma tsunami’ has been presented. Some violently conflict, notably the view of Polokwane as a communist putsch and those which perceive it as an expression of democracy; some view it as broadly progressive, while others see it as a danger to constitutionalism; and at least one is potentially dialectical, a decline of the ANC being heralded as a harbinger of wider democracy. Yet diverse aspects of these interpretations significantly overlap. In particular, they share a perception that Polokwane constituted a major turning point, a ruction to which future historians will look back as a key moment in either the un-making or re-making of the ANC as well as of South African democracy. Against this, the simultaneous fluidity, overlap and contradictions of the manner in which the tsunami is interpreted indicate something of an impasse in our understanding of the class composition, political direction and programme of the ANC after 15 years in power.
This inconclusive conclusion raises yet further questions about Zuma the man and the tsunami as a movement. In his recent, sympathetic biography of Zuma, Gordin (2008, p. 306) portrays a figure who, although above all ‘a party man’, is simultaneously an individual of remarkable agency, who apart from having an extraordinary ability to attract popular support from diverse constituencies, provokes astonishing levels of discomfort amongst his detractors. Gordin suggests that this is because in Zuma, the self-image of South Africa as civilised, liberal and forward looking, as represented by its constitution, is overturned, and in its place, the elite is forced to confront the ugly realities of inequality, poverty, racism, ethnic sectarianism and male chauvinism. Yet in this Gordin does not go far enough, because it can be argued equally that in Zuma, his supporters have a leader who speaks to their own images, fears and hopes, however contradictory the diverse ideological underpinnings of such imaginings amongst his support might be: on the one hand, his message is replete with socio-economic pragmatism and cultural conservatism, on the other his rise can be presented as the triumph of the left. Nonetheless, Gordin (2008, p. 307) is correct in arguing that Zuma forces us to look beneath the surface of South African society, to ponder the shifting social forces within its political economy, and indeed, within the ANC. In absence of any consensus about what the Zuma tsunami ‘means’, and the extent to which Zuma can or will himself rewrite the scripts presented to him, we will have to await history.