How many times has the president failed us. Let us count the ways, says Ufrieda Ho.
Last week while Braamfontein was burning, the president of the country was dancing at a banquet in Kenya.
While he busted out the dance moves, protests from #FeesMustFall spilled onto the Braamfontein streets and things turned ugly quickly.
As Wits University implemented curfews and restricted access, students vented by throwing stones at passing motorists and setting fire to buildings on the campus.
Jacob Zuma though, didn’t cancel his trip and fly back from Nairobi to show leadership how serious he thought the matter was.
Not our absent president, who just said in an empty statement this week: “Your protests are a noble call,” then tacking on, “We also urge them to support the orderly processes of finding solutions to this important challenge. They must not break doors that are already open.”
His solution: hauling out what stands in for a response when tough decisions have to be made; an inter-ministerial task team.
And, only at the very last minute did it include Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan - the person who decides how to divvy up South Africa’s money pie.
Speaking of money, the country is staring into the abyss that is a ratings agency’s downgrade to junk status at the end of the year.
It tells investors to steer clear of us. Instead of calming the markets with assurances, Zuma persists with the puppet show of pushing the finance minister around and letting loose his dogs of war to nip at his heels.
Then the announcement came that South Africa has started the process to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Government cites a balance of commitments. In June, Jeff Radebe, Minister in the Presidency, wrote in the online Rand Daily Mail in June: “Despite being a member of the Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, South Africa has to balance its obligations to the ICC with its obligations to the AU and its obligations to individual states, including those in Africa.”
South Africans can buy an Africa-first reasoning and rightly Africans should challenge a bias against the continent if it exists, but quitting the ICC over Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir is a failing.
This is the man who has been president of his country since 1993.
He stands accused of crimes against humanity, murder, extermination and torture.
Zuma failed to arrest Bashir when he arrived for an AU meeting in the country last year. He dodged questions on why Bashir was allowed to slip quietly out of the country.
It was no coincidence that South Africa’s notice to quit the ICC comes straight after Zuma’s return from Kenya.
Kenya itself is bitter that the ICC indicted president Uhuru Kenyatta of ethnic violence (the charges were later dropped).
Post-election violence in 2007-2008 in the East African country cost the lives of about 1 200 people.
Zuma may battle with numbers, but it’s not difficult to count the times that he’s made headlines for all the wrong reasons.
In April last year, Zuma was in the news for staying silent for days after xenophobic attacks erupted in Durban and Gauteng. That wave of nophobic violence left at least six people dead and displaced hundreds of others.
When finally Zuma did speak out it was with his usual empty phrases - “we are deeply concerned”, South Africans must “show respect and ubuntu” and “we must work towards social cohesion”.
He said nothing about getting to the root causes that create social fracture, about solving the problem of competition for scarce resources or understanding the complexities and putting an end to violence as a means to a end.
And then there was the Marikana massacre, the Sharpeville of our time. Police opened fire on 34 striking Lonmin mineworkers in the North West province in August 2012.
Zuma defended the police action as “protecting people’s lives”. Later Zuma held on to the Farlam Commission’s report for more than 50 days, even as families of the dead had waited for so long with no answers. When it came, Zuma’s governing party’s comment was: “We once again send condolences to the families...” Of course it was to avoid connecting the massacre with Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, or Zuma’s personal appointee, police commissioner Riah Phiyega.
Of course it chalks up another one for Zuma in the fail column. South Africans keep counting the ways that Zuma lets the country down. As our hearts sink further for our beloved country, it’s clear that something is not adding up.
Saturday Star