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South Africa

South Africa’s Nkandla scandal finally catches up with Zuma

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South Africa's Constitutional Court has, at long last, ruled that president Jacob Zuma must repay the government for upgrades to his home at Nkandla.
South Africa’s Constitutional Court has, at long last, ruled that president Jacob Zuma must repay the government for upgrades to his home at Nkandla.

Imagine if, as president, George W. Bush diverted $23 million in public funds to improve his ranch in Midland, Texas.south africa flag

Imagine, further, that after a government ruling to reimburse the state treasury for those funds, it took a Supreme Court ruling to force Bush to acknowledge the graft and apologize. That, in essence, is what has happened in South Africa, where years of graft and corruption have caught up with Jacob Zuma, the two-term president and leader of the African National Congress (ANC).

At the end of last week, South Africa’s constitutional court ruled that Zuma violated the country’s constitution in refusing to yield to the findings of a public protector that he should pay back much of those amounts spent to upgrade his Nkandla estate in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal. Zuma and his associates conjured risible explanations for the spending — for example, a magnificent swimming pool was rationalized as a ‘fire pool’ to provide a reservoir of water in case of emergency.

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RELATED: Even with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk?

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South Africa’s public prosecutor disagreed and, after Zuma refused to heed that decision, the constitutional court disagreed as well. Zuma promptly took to national television to apologize, agreeing that he would, at long last, repay the South African treasury. Though opposition parties have called for Zuma’s impeachment, the ANC’s massive parliamentary majority makes that an unlikely possibility.

Set to step down in 2019, the 73-year-old Zuma is no stranger to controversy. He came to power in 2008 as a bitter enemy of then-president Thabo Mbeki, though even then he was under various ethics clouds, including a sensational rape trial that ended in 2006 (he was ultimately acquitted of the charges). Zuma’s rise meant that power would shift from the Xhosa power base of Mandela and Mbeki, for the first time in post-apartheid South Africa, to Zuma’s own Zulu power base. That, in turn, meant an entirely new set of Zulu elites within the ANC looking for their share of party patronage and the other benefits of power. The excesses of Nkandla epitomize the degree of impunity of ANC officials in the Zuma era.  Continue reading South Africa’s Nkandla scandal finally catches up with Zuma →

South Africa

Even with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk?

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cyril-ramaphosa-and-jacob-zuma-create-south-africa-s-politcal-team-photodpa_0.

No one doubts that the African National Congress (ANC) will win South Africa’s parliamentary elections on May 7, extending its political hold on the country since the end of apartheid in 1994 and the election of the ANC’s Nelson Mandela as South Africa’s first non-white president.south africa flag

Twenty years later, South Africans are going to the polls for the first time following Mandela’s death late last year, and the chief opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will be satisfied if it can make further gains, consolidating its hold on Western Cape province, where the DA’s leader Helen Zille serves as premier, appealing to voters in Northern Cape and Eastern Cape, and growing its presence in Gauteng under the leadership of rising star Mmusi Maimane, currently a member of the Johannesburg city council.

But even if the ANC wins with over 60% of the vote, the same level of support as it has generally attracted in the past three elections, South Africa’s ruling structure will enter its third consecutive decade in power exceedingly unpopular, increasingly divided and with no clear path of transition to a compelling successor to the 71-year-old Zuma (pictured above, right, with deputy ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa).

As Zuma is term-limited as South Africa’s president (the president is elected shortly after parliamentary elections, so the ANC’s dominance will all but assuredly result in Zuma’s reelection later in May or June), he’ll enter his second term as a lame duck with nagging controversies over mismanagement and corruption.

What’s more, the ANC will elect a new leader in 2017 — meaning that, unless Zuma tries to hold onto the party leadership, the ANC will determine the individual who could lead South Africa from 2019 to 2029 within the next three-year window. Though posturing for the 2017 contest is well under way, if quietly, too few ANC leaders are talking about how to revitalize the ANC for a new generation of issues and policy challenges.

Policy and governance woes

Over the past five years, South Africa’s once-booming economy has slowed. Continue reading Even with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk? →