Douglas Gibson says Jacob Zuma's brilliant record as a fighter for freedom has been obscured by his greed, which has enabled his capture.
Tony Leon said years ago that our constitutional democracy was so strong that South Africa could survive a term or two with a weak president. I agreed with him, but I must confess that I had no idea quite how bad this president would be or how trying his presidency would be for the country and what damage it would cause.
“How did we get to this point?”
In 1994, things looked so hopeful, so promising. It didn’t matter whether one had voted ANC, NNP or DP; most of us were filled with optimism about the future, glad to be rid of the shackles of apartheid and tired of being the polecat of the world.
We knew that there was a long road ahead and that there had to be redress - the past could not simply be forgotten - but we yearned to create a better future for all of us, together, as free and equal citizens of a new South Africa.
Twenty-three years later we have a president who starts his Freedom Day speech, not trying to unify his people, but lovingly polishing his and the country’s anti-apartheid credentials.
I once accused disgraced former political prisoner, MP and ambassador, Carl Niehaus, of using apartheid as the gift that keeps on giving because he wanted to keep on dining out on it .
It seems President Jacob Zuma suffers from the same sickness.
On Freedom Day, when South Africans were meant to come together to celebrate, the president said: “It has been a long road since that watershed general election that marked the collapse of racist white rule. The defeat of apartheid colonialism by the South African people was one of the great achievements of humankind One of the best descriptions of life under racist minority rule In those days the black man was treated as a beast of burden. He was knocked and kicked about with impunity.”
And so on. And on. Nothing he said was untrue. But he failed to mention that it was our compatriots together who ended the old system and took hands in creating the new.
The MK and ANC did not bring about the transition; the Nationalist government could have held out for years and led us into civil war and bloodshed. Instead, people of vision and goodwill like Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk and representatives of all the political parties negotiated a new future - first the unbannings, then the peace talks, then through Codesa.
Has Mr Zuma forgotten that?
His mission is not to unite us: it is to divide us. The purpose is clear: the ANC is failing as a governing party and faces the prospect of defeat in the 2019 general election. This being so, this shrewd old man reckons the best way of shoring up his support is to exacerbate racial feelings and make the majority of black South Africans blame white South Africans for everything that is wrong.
It is a handy fact that whites now number nearly 8% of the electorate. Few support the ANC, so he risks losing minimal support from whites.
When Zuma talks about racism, as he does at every opportunity, it is always about white perpetrators and black victims. It is never the other way around. In the midst of all his other troubles, the president ought to look in the mirror if he wants to identify someone who goes out of his way to incite racial animosity. If the laws against racism eventually pass through Parliament, he will have to be careful and modify his utterances, otherwise he might find himself in court, not only facing 783 corruption charges, but also a charge or two of racism.
What a tragedy it is that Jacob Zuma has turned out to be such a disappointment.
Despite his questionable ethics, when he succeeded the excellent Kgalema Motlanthe, he had a reputation for being a friendly, approachable person, different from the rather austere intellectual, Thabo Mbeki.
His brilliant record as a fighter for freedom has been obscured by his greed that enabled his capture, first by Schabir Shaik and then far more destructively for the country, by the Gupta family and, it is strongly rumoured, the Russians.
Because the president has made sure that his acolytes and supporters eat at the trough, the chances of the parliamentary no-confidence motion succeeding are slim. For the same reason, the ANC is highly unlikely to “recall” him. He is likely to continue in office until 2019.
That continuance spells disaster for the chances of the ANC retaining power, but for the political health of South Africa, it is just the impetus the country needs to move to the next stage of democracy: a transfer of power to a new government via the ballot box.
I think Tony Leon was correct - South Africa is strong enough to survive even this presidency. That is something to celebrate.
* Douglas Gibson is a former opposition chief whip and a former ambassador to Thailand.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.