The opposition must move on from just criticising the president to dealing with key questions dogging many people in SA, says Craig Dodds.
Cape Town - DA leader and Western Cape Premier Helen Zille watched on Tuesday when the National Assembly debated a motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma.
The rhetoric lived up to expectations in a no-holds-barred assault, led by DA parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane, who said MPs had a choice between defending “a thief” and standing up for South Africans.
The EFF’s Rose Sonti accused Zuma of sending police to kill miners in Marikana, while the FF Plus compared him to a runaway bride, never to be found when the moment of truth arrived.
It is hard to imagine too many presidents who could weather such a storm – fed by the numerous scandals that have dogged his tenure.
Zuma was not in the House to defend himself, yet by the end of the day it was the opposition, not the president, who were licking their wounds.
While Zille sat watching the debate, another storm was raging – on social media – over the Western Cape government’s decision to cancel its subscription to the Cape Times – published by Independent Media (Disclosure: self-evidently, I work for this company).
Commentators asked why a supposedly liberal party would use taxpayers’ money to censure a publication whose views it did not approve of – and the conclusions were unflattering.
It was notable that many who have been critical of Independent Media joined the outcry – isolating Zille from liberal voices she would be expected to be in agreement with on questions of media independence. She hardly helped her cause when, the next day, she lashed out at those who questioned the justification for this decision.
The EFF, meanwhile, forfeited the moral high ground it was aiming for when Sonti threw into her speech an accusation that services intended for Marikana residents were being diverted to “amaShangane”.
EFF leader Julius Malema launched an immediate defence, claiming the term was a colloquial reference to foreigners and not an ethnic group.
But the damage had been done and Malema appeared oblivious to the naked xenophobia inherent in his defence.
Unlike the DA, the EFF continued to backpedal on Wednesday, issuing a contrite statement in which it said the party was “not a tribalist organisation, and it is never xenophobic”.
“The EFF is a progressive movement, which believes all South Africans and Africans should be treated equally and with respect, despite their place of origin and language they speak,” it said.
The revival of Malema’s tax woes and squabbling in his party were an unwanted additional distraction.
But the opposition miscues were not the reason the no confidence debate fell flat. Nor was it the inevitability of it being defeated by the ANC majority.
And it was not because the accusations levelled at Zuma were not damaging – from the state of the economy, through Marikana and on to Nkandla, the issues together were devastating.
It was just that, as Deputy Minister of Justice John Jeffery pointed out, all these things were known before the elections, as was the fact that Zuma would be president, yet voters gave the ANC a 62 percent majority anyway.
There’s no arguing, really, with that verdict (though it should be qualified by the low turnout in the polls).
Whatever electoral damage Zuma has done to his party is largely done already and opposition harping on the subject amounts to little more than preaching to the converted.
If the tumult that characterised the first six months of the fifth Parliament has suddenly subsided and even the EFF now routinely insists it has no intention of disrupting proceedings, much of this can be attributed to the waning power of the Zuma question and the cover it provided for opposition party anger.
People may be outraged still, but they have been for a long time, and there are more pressing questions haunting most South Africans.
If opposition parties wish to remain relevant to these people they will have to shelve “plan Z” for the moment and dig out plan B – if they have one.
The president may be a touchstone for their own constituencies but any advances at the polls can only come from converting ANC supporters who didn’t feel strongly enough about Zuma to vote against the party in the last elections.
They have to break new ground, in other words, even if they continue to mine the Zuma seam while they’re at it.
Fortunately for them, there is no shortage of issues to be exploited, from an opposition point of view, but it will require more application and analysis than simply railing about Zuma.
Increasingly, they will find themselves divided on these questions – the economy, transformation, land reform, labour relations, to mention a few – as they revert to their ideological roots.
If they really want to make headway they will have to turn these questions into proposed solutions, rather than simply pointing out the flaws in existing policy and lapses in execution – an exercise in which the DA and EFF at least have made a start, though they will have to foreground such efforts in future.
As Parliament gets down to detailed interrogation of departmental budgets and strategic plans in its multitude of committees, while a more dignified tone settles in during plenary sessions, there is a sense once more of industry and a legislature grappling with the complexities of government in difficult times. Scandals blow across the surface in occasional squalls but deeper currents determine the weather. That is a hopeful development, if it translates into considered debate of these issues and causes opposition parties to lift their game.
Meanwhile, almost unnoticed, the ANC has turned the tables on the opposition, shifting the focus away from its president and on to their weaknesses, as Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa did on Wednesday when he thundered about the DA leadership’s failure to tackle racism in the Western Cape.
Zille had played into his hands.
Zuma had left the building.
* Craig Dodd is a senior political correspondent for Independent Media.
Political Bureau