President Jacob Zuma is a master at shooting himself in the foot and pretending the gaping and bleeding wound does not actually hurt.
He’s done it again… this time his master act was his backing of his ex-wife to succeed him as president of the republic when, in actual fact, his comrades are doing exactly the opposite and dousing the divisive fires of premature pronouncements on the subject.
While Gwede Mantashe and others are at pains to call errant comrades to order on the matter, he has defied logic and protocol and publicly backed current African Unity chair, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for the post, thereby opening a can of worms.
How do you then call others to order when your very own party president does not respect and toe the party line? Why should the rank and file members of the ANC heed and respect the call by Mantashe and others for a moratorium on the issue?
That’s precisely why people often call on Zuma to lead by example, which he surely does not understand. How do you, as the king, call upon your subjects to observe and honour a certain principle that you, yourself, flout?
What he’s doing is no different from a parent who keeps on telling his children never to take the forbidden drink, yet, he comes home every night stone drunk. Will the children ever take him seriously when he urges them to abstain from alcohol?
Zuma cannot preach to us to stay on the straight and narrow, yet, he is the biggest culprit of some horrendous misdemeanours in our country.
Only fools that feed off him will heed his call but the rest of us will not take him seriously.
One thing that he does not realise is that his backing for his former bedfellow is hollow and some of us can see right through its belly. Similar to our not-so-honourable neighbour to the north, President Robert Mugabe, Zuma has numerous misdemeanours hanging over his head and, hence, he has chosen the Mugabe dynasty route of wanting to put his wife in power.
The sole reason for this is that both Zuma and Mugabe are quite aware of their ill deeds while at the helm of the reins of power and that once they relinquish that power, they will lay themselves bare for possible arrest and criminal action.
To safeguard themselves, they want to put their bedfellows in power so as to cover their backs. Zuma knows he will have a hold over his ex, after campaigning for her and by virtue of the children, who will fight tooth and nail to ensure their father is never fed to the marauding lions.
But whatever the case may be, and whoever Zuma backs, the truth of the matter is that battle lines have been drawn for a bruising fight to the death for the soul and heart of the ANC. I can assure you, once beaten, Cyril will not be twice shy; he’s going to put up a fight to the death to become our number one.
