Corruption remains a central issue

In a week during which corruption issues are threatening finally to tear apart South Africa’s ruling alliance, President Jacob Zuma’s own corruption ghost went back to court on Monday. With this spectre hanging over his head, Zuma must make some tough moral and political calls this week on allegations of corruption in the ANC, the fight between nationalists and the Left, the pending ANC disciplinary hearing of Cosatu leader Zwelinzima Vavi, Cosatu’s threat to leave the ruling alliance and more... and hope that he can keep the Alliance together at its most precarious time ever.

The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) went back to court over the issue of how and why the NPA decided in April last year to drop corruption charges against Zuma, barely three weeks before he became South Africa’s president.

It appears therefore that corruption, in one form or another, will be at the top of the national agenda for the immediate future – alongside soccer, of course.

The intensification of probably the worst family squabble to date within the ruling alliance of the African National Congress (ANC), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP) is most likely. In fact, it is hardly a squabble anymore.

Lined up against one another is Cosatu general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi against the ANC’s national working committee (NWC). Disciplinary action is at stake here.

Now Vavi and former Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and South African National Defence Force supreme and now Communications minister General Siphiwe Nyanda seem to be heading for a court battle.

Vavi earned himself the ire of a dominant nationalist faction in the ANC’s national leadership by:

• questioning whether the Alliance was still considered by the ANC as the strategic political centre – which would then include Cosatu – as stated by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, but has been rejected by the nationalists;

• criticising President Zuma for not taking appropriate action against corrupt members of his government;

• saying that Co-operative Governance Minister Sicelo Shiceka had lied in his CV; and

• accusing General Nyanda of running up unauthorised hotel bills, costing the taxpayer R515 000.

As the various sides were progressively forcing themselves into corners from where face-saving compromises increasingly look unlikely, Nyanda reacted with a lawyer’s letter demanding an apology from Vavi, failing which he will sue Vavi for defamation.

The majority nationalists faction on the NWC reacted swiftly. They forced through a decision to haul Vavi in front of an ANC disciplinary hearing. Illustrating one of the dilemmas of the alliance structure, Vavi is a leader of a separate organisation (Cosatu) in the Alliance, but also an ANC member.

Vavi has not yet responded to General Nyanda’s letter, but said he would never appologise. Cosatu threatened to pull out of the Alliance if the disciplinary hearing materialises.

It all boils down to the battle for control over the policy of the Alliance between the Left (Cosatu and the SACP) and the nationalists of the ANC.

The Left has also taken on the role of ethical and moral watchdog over the state and the government. In this latter role, it has called for lifestyle audits of senior government and ANC members and has criticised the level of tenderpreneurial self-enrichment and corruption in the government and the ANC. In this respect, the Left has earned the respect and support of some of its natural enemies, such as business.

The question is: how will Zuma manage the situation while his own corruption nightmare is being reopened in full public glare? For Zuma to take action on the Vavi-NWC-Nyanda issue could become a major dilemma for him.

Anything he does could see him becoming the casualty of his own action.  Neither side will forgive him easily if he turned against it, while a compromise seems as unlikely as finding ice in the Sahara Desert.

The NWC can hardly back down now, having issued the challenge of a disciplinary hearing – the same tool that was used against Julius Malema with the backing of Cosatu and Vavi.

Equally so, Cosatu cannot back down from its threat to exit from the Alliance should the hearing proceed, a threat that has the backing of a powerful union such as the National Union of Mineworkers, which says any disciplinary hearing of Vavi will amount to a declaration of war.

Nyanda’s legal action is already in motion and unlikely to be reversed, say those familiar with his coldly calculating, unemotional style.

The three parties to the current dispute have left no room for compromise. For the first time ever, it seems that a fight to the death – for the Alliance – may be inevitable.