Last-minute manoeuvrings by ANC play directly into Zuma’s hand

Approaching our most momentous election in 30 years, the country oscillates between giddy excitement and extreme anxiety.

The former is triggered by a possible end to the ANC’s hitherto absolute grip on power. The latter stems from the same.

The political climate hasn’t been so charged since the fraught 1994 elections.

Former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party warned of “anarchy and riots” if the ANC succeeded in having it disbarred from the election or if MK was “robbed” at the ballot box.

In December, the SA Local Government Association said the situation was particularly tense in KwaZulu-Natal, with increasing political violence and assassinations.

General Roland de Vries, a former deputy chief of the SA Army, warned the country was a tinderbox that might at any moment explode into violence, with a government that lacked the capacity and will to protect its citizens.

In a BizNews interview, De Vries said the inability of law enforcement agencies to deal with large-scale unrest, evident during the July 2021 riots in KZN and Gauteng, serves as “a template for planning the next wave” of violence.

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Central to this is the malevolent but canny Zuma. Initially, the ANC’s response to the launch last year of the MK party was scornful disdain. Such arrogance, coupled with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s loathing of conflict and the party’s abysmal organisational skills has cost the party dearly.

By the time the ANC awoke to the threat posed by the MK party, it was too late.

First, an ANC Electoral Court application to have MK’s electoral registration declared unlawful failed. Then, the same court overturned the decision of the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) to remove Zuma from the ballot on grounds of a 15-month sentence for contempt of court, which was never served because of a pardon from Ramaphosa.

And finally, last week in the KZN High Court in Durban, the ANC lost, with costs awarded against it, its claim that it held copyright on the logo adopted by MK.

The IEC is appealing the rejection of the removal of Zuma from the ballot to the Constitutional Court. It says it must urgently, for the sake of the integrity of the elections, have clarity on what is an important matter of principle.

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Last Wednesday, the ConCourt sprung belatedly into action. Zuma’s legal team was given 24 hours to file an answering affidavit, if the MK party wished to oppose the IEC application. This sudden haste is peculiar.

The deadline is unreasonable and the ConCourt acceded to the Zuma team’s request for an extension to Tuesday. That’s barely four weeks before election day.

What makes the timing even tighter is that no party to this appeal process has yet seen the Electoral Court’s reasoning for its decision.

Failing judicial cooperation in taking Zuma out of the election, some appear to be banking on divine intervention. This week News24 ran a speculative story under the headline “Zuma’s ill-health sparks concern after recent falls”.

Based on “four independent sources”, the story implies that Zuma is a dead man walking. Even if he were to make it to 29 May, his failing health might result in him not being around for long afterwards. The subtext is: don’t waste your votes on the MK party, folks.

ALSO READ: ‘They are throwing a last dice and hoping it will bring us down’ – ANC to appeal MK logo judgment

All these last-minute manoeuvrings by the ANC play directly into Zuma’s hand, giving him new examples with which to bulk his well-worn narrative of victimisation by the ANC, the judiciary and the forces of white monopoly capital.

It also indicates an ANC that’s rattled and under pressure. Politicians under pressure often make bad decisions.