Zuma reigns supreme

Jacob Zuma has tamed the ANC. If there was any doubt about who is the ringmaster in the organisation, he put it to rest yesterday, strolling among the exhibition stalls at the national policy conference (NPC), the smiling king of all he surveyed.

An ANC source said the message which echoed through the five-day conference loud and clear was: the NPC was about policy issues, not leadership preferences.

Zuma himself – and the accusations that he has been captured by the Gupta family – was not up for discussion.

A senior ANC source said Zuma was not someone to worry about at this conference, because he is to face a parliamentary vote of no confidence on August 8.

Another ANC source said provinces tried to reach consensus on some positions in the interest of unity including proposed leadership structural changes.

The provincial secretaries had been meeting prior to the NPC and agreed that they must avoid factional conflict.

If the orders to avoid discussing Zuma were not enough, the Zuma loyalists made it plain to delegates what would happen if they stepped out of line.

Police Minister Fikile Mbalula said ANC MPs who voted to oust Zuma on August 8 would be committing political suicide and they would be disciplined by the party.

Much as he did during last week’s parliamentary debate, Zuma’s words, and his body language, confirmed he is a man who believes he is in charge and prepared to take the fight to his enemies.

This he did with stinging attacks on his opponents, including the party’s “stalwarts” whom he said thought they had power when, in fact, they did not.

He also hit out at “ill-discipline in various forms” within the organisation, “including public utterances attacking the movement by ANC leaders and members instead of handling matters within the organisation and finding constructive solutions.”

The policy conference clearly did that and kept the organisation’s dirty laundry away from the public eye.

And, as Zuma moved among the stalls yesterday, he was at the top of his game, in good spirits after having shrugged off the nega tive aspects of the “Diagnostic Report” which dealt with some parts of the state capture allegations.

He chatted with business stall-holders and faced a battery of journalists. He praised the robustness and frankness of the debates by delegates saying the conference was going well.

“There were absolutely wonderful presentations. I was impressed by the quality of the debates. I think it has gone up especially when listening to the stalwarts and the youth and the delegates themselves,” he said.

The president said they did the introspection of the party and considered policy challenges the ANC was confronted with.

“When challenges are there the ANC always rises to those challenges. We realised that the ANC in government and the ANC in the struggle are two different things. But we are dealing with them in the manner that OR Tambo warned us that it is more difficult to be in government than to fight a liberation war,” Zuma said.