The House of Zuma may yet prevail in SA politics

The slow deflation of South Africa’s very own Michelin man continues. Jacob Zuma is subsiding into a pitiful caricature of his former virile self.

This week, almost unnoticed among our childlike, excited anticipation as to whether Uncle Cyril would allow us to buy fags and KFC with our level 4 pocket money, the House of Zuma took another hit.

The last-chance legal bid that was intended permanently to halt his prosecution on corruption charges has been officially dropped. The delays are now over. Zuma will soon have that exculpatory “day in court” that for 15 years he has been claiming to want so much.

But he will enter the final act of the drama a shadow of the powerful force he once was. Cadre loyalties have faded and the party parasites have possibly found more profitable politicians to attach themselves to.

It’s no longer so easy to conjure a crowd outside the court to drive home that this is a Big Man they are dealing with, not someone to be trifled with. Unfortunately for him, had the ConCourt hearing proceeded, the Big Man wouldn’t even have been able to get his expansive butt to Johannesburg in the luxury to which he had become accustomed.

The squadron of helicopter taxis that shuttled family and friends between rural Nkandla and Durban is gone. Inkwazi, the presidential Boeing, is no longer available.

And with SAA now perpetually parked, JZ can’t even avail himself, his five wives and 23 children, of free travel on the national airliner.

Money is tight. Last year, the liquidators of VBS Mutual Bank filed for a court order to compel Zuma to pay the arrears on the R7.3m loan he had obtained to repay the state for the unauthorised upgrades to Nkandla.

As Zuma mojo has subsided like a badly knotted balloon leaking air so, too, has his once shiny visage crumbled. In photographs, he looks grey and unwell, making entirely believable the speculation around a serious mystery illness that it appears can be treated only in Cuba and Russia.

In 2015, one of Zuma’s wives was driven from Nkandla after being accused by Zuma and the then-state security minister of having poisoned him. Five years later, the prosecuting authority declined to proceed with charges.

It immediately brought to mind the Churchillian exchange between Winston and the acidic Lady Nancy Astor. She reputedly said, “Winston, if you were my husband, I’d poison your tea.” To which Churchill shot back, “Nancy, if I were your husband, I’d drink it.”

Fortunately for his long-divorced former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, none of this matters. In fact, the woman who the Zuma faction had wanted to inherit ex-husband Jacob’s presidential mantle, is going from strength to strength.

Not only does she radiate good health but she appears to be growing in power and influence. It must be galling to President Cyril Ramaphosa, the man who supposedly defeated her in that leadership tussle.

Last week, Ramaphosa said that the lockdown ban on cigarette sales would be lifted. This week, Dlamini-Zuma, a scarily fanatical warrior in the war against the demon tobacco, simply overruled him.

The House of Zuma may still prevail in SA politics. Just a different part of it.

William Saunderson-Meyer.

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