President Zuma’s visit to KZN, where he painted himself as the innocent victim of conspirators bent on destabilising the country, may well backfire, writes Dennis Pather.
When everything in life seems to be going pear-shaped and you’re feeling spurned and unloved, it’s time to visit Aunt Martha.
She’s not a real person, it’s just a moniker for someone who’ll lend you a sympathetic ear when you need one; someone who’s non-judgemental and will never let you down.
President Jacob Zuma went to visit his Aunt Martha in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal last week feeling down in the dumps after the battering he took over his party’s falling fortunes, accusations that he’s embedded in “state capture” and demands that he quit.. It can get very lonely at the top and he believed that when he crossed the Drakensberg and stopped over for a few heart-to-heart “cadre forums” in Pietermaritzburg and KwaDukuza over the weekend, it would be like a homecoming.
This was vintage Zuma - off-the-cuff and in Zulu - as he painted himself as the innocent victim of conspirators on a mission to destabilise the country and smear his reputation. Eish! the audience exclaimed. It was not his fault the country’s finances were in a mess. The real blame lay with certain “white capital masters” who forced him to fire Des van Rooyen as finance minister last year. In fact, he only appointed Pravin Gordhan in Van Rooyen’s place because they threatened to “burn the country down” if they did not get their way.
Eish! Even worse is that certain countries - he can’t quite remember which - are financing local parties to talk evil about the ANC.Eish! He and his government are hamstrung because all they have is political power. Economic power is controlled by other people. His government was always being unfairly attacked as those with real economic power used it to manipulate people. Only if he and his government were given the keys to the country’s finances would it be possible to ensure economic freedom for all.
Eish, eish, eish! In a rousing finale to his speech, he reminded his audience: “Always remember this truism: you can only fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”
Being loyal supporters of the president, they took his words to heart and never allowed themselves to be fooled again.
The Sunday Independent