Wheels within wheels to watch

Although the cards seem to be stacked against him after the ANC’s National Disciplinary Committee (NDC) suspended him from the party it might be too early to write Julius Malema’s political obituary. The real story to watch in the developments around the ruling party is probably also not his, but the fight back by president Jacob Zuma in the run up to next year’s elective conference at the end of the ANC’s centenary year celebrations.

In the immediate future probably some very turbulent times could lie ahead for the ruling party with talk of a fight-back roadshow by the current ANC Youth League (ANCYL) leadership still in office until the appeal process has run its course. At the same time the battle for the election of a new leadership seems also to have already started.

What should not be lost sight of is that with all the dramas around him and his extremely robust style of leadership, what can be called the Malema-phenomenon is but a symptom of a much more fundamental problem in the South African body politic.

This problem was clearly highlighted by the report of the National Planning

Commission ‘s (NPC) proposed national development plan that was by coincidence released at the same time as the NDC-decision hit the news headlines.

Describing the country’s young population as both an asset and a ticking time-bomb, the NPC highlighted the fact that young people, the majority of whom are between the ages of 15 and 29, made up 29% of the population in 2010 and are forecast to remain above 25% until 2030, when thy will decline as a share of the population to 25%.

By creating jobs for this group, South Africa can boost economic growth and reduce poverty and inequality. If not the youth would become a threat to the country’s stability and a pool of support for populist politicians.

With young people making up 29% of its population South Africa is a whisker away from what is called the young bulge, when a country is at high risk of destabilisation, especially if it has high levels of unemployment.

Against this background, this weekend’s commentary by Sunday Times columnist Phylicia Oppelt on the Malema-saga seems particularly appropriate. She posed the question about the removal of Malema: “Did it change anything significant on a real and fundamental level, besides a shift within the ANC, the realignment of intra-party forces and, for Jacob Zuma, an elegant solution to a very inelegant problem?

“Most importantly, what will it deliver fot young, unemployed, poverty-stricken people who believed in Malema as their saviour?”

Dave Steward, executive director of the F.W. de Klerk Foundation, in his reaction to the NDC-decision also remarked: “Whatever Malema's future may be, the issues that he so aggressively articulates and the constituency that he claims to represent will not disappear.
“One of the central challenges facing government - and indeed all South Africans - will be to restore some degree of hope to the millions of young - predominantly black - South Africans, whom Malema claims to represent.  Our new society has failed them dismally: it has left most of them educationally crippled and 70% are unemployed.  
“All this makes them susceptible to the populist promises of demagogues. The nostrums that Malema prescribes are politically and economically illiterate but enormously appealing to these millions of young people subsisting on their siblings' children's allowances and their grannies' pensions.”

How the Malema story will eventually end will largely depend on the success achieved by the NPC’s  national development plan in turning the challenge of the young bulge into a real opportunity.

The Zuma story

But the Malema-story, as it developed over recent weeks, is also intimately intertwined with the come-back story of president Zuma.

For months, even years, president Zuma was widely accused by his detractors – and very much by some of his supposed allies in the ANC-led governing alliance – of not being proactive, not providing leadership, trying to please everybody, turning a blind eye to corruption, allowing Malema and the Youth League to get away with murder, not being committed to upholding the constitution and the role of the Chapter 9 institutions, and much more.

It is as if all that has changed almost overnight. It seems Zuma was merely giving his opponents enough rope to provide him with the right kind of ammunition to cut them down to size and strengthen his own position with a view to next year’s leadership elections at the national conference to be held in Mangaung in the Free State.

In one fell swoop Zuma:

• announced a commission of inquiry into the arms deal;
• said he would release the report of the Donen Commission into the “Oilgate scandal”;
• suspended his national police chief, General Bheki Cele, a former close political ally who is said to have turned against him pending an inquiry after the Public Protector fingered Cele in connection with two allegedly crooked lease deals;
• demonstrated his commitment to the Constitution and the Chapter 9 institutions when he also fired two cabinet ministers for various irregularities, thus acting on the advice of the Public Protector;
• denounced Malema’s demands for nationalisation and seizure of white-owned land without compensation as not being ANC policy;
• played the correct role in the Libya debacle that saw him emerge from it on the honourable side of history; and
• oversaw charges being brought against Malema that led to his suspension.

While there may arguably have been other factors that also played a role in Zuma’s decisions, the sum total of it all is that Zuma finds himself in the strongest possible political and moral position within the ANC just as the party goes into its celebratory centenary year which culminates in the elective national conference in December next year.

Piet Coetzer