One year of Zuma

As South Africans survey the first year of Jacob Zuma’s presidency, they must be mindful that only a fifth of his incumbency has passed.

There is still time for President Zuma to correct errors, to meet election promises that seem to be going unfulfilled, to build on the few successes of his first year, and to arrest developments that may be harmful to South Africa’s future.

In last week’s edition, Fr Anthony Egan SJ pointed out that few policies had changed from the Mbeki era. There is one crucial exception: the Zuma government’s HIV/Aids policy has brought the state in line with a broad consensus on addressing the crisis.

Mr Zuma and his appointees to the police portfolio — minister Nathi Mthethwa and police chief Bheki Cele — merit recognition for the manner in which they helped defuse a potentially explosive situation after last month’s violent death of the white surpremacist Eugene Terre’Blanche. While fears of a supposed “race war” always were exaggerated, the relative calm in the killing’s aftermath can in large part be credited to the intervention of government and state.

Many of Mr Zuma’s ministerial appointments also deserve praise, even if we are yet to see the concrete results from their collective expertise. Alas, some ministers have made headlines not for their performance, but for squandering the taxpayers’ money on luxury cars and extravagant hotel accommodation.

It seems that the pattern of corruption with impunity has made the transition from the Mbeki era to that of Zuma. There has been no sustained evidence of the promised anti-corruption drive. Indeed, Mr Zuma’s laissez-faire approach to ethical conduct in public affairs has found expression in his censure by public protector Thulisile Madonsela for not complying with the Executive Ethics Code.

It seems evident that many within the African National Congress-led alliance that helped Mr Zuma into the presidency now expect to benefit from the president’s position. It is not at all clear that the momentum that brought Mr Zuma victory at the ANC’s December 2007 national conference in Polokwane was predicated on only pure intentions.

Some ANC leaders make no secret of their expectation to be rewarded for their support. For example, there is a view that Mr Zuma should not chastise ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema because of the youth league’s support for the president, an expectation of reciprocal loyalty regardless of the greater good.

Mr Zuma is known as a conciliator who aims to bring together disparate factions. But the ANC membership and the general electorate mandated Mr Zuma to lead, not to moderate.

When voices in the ANC criticised Mr Zuma for his public and much overdue admonition of Mr Malema, the party’s president should have been heard to put down his foot. When government ministers mock the country’s poor by spending extravagant amounts of tax money on luxury cars, entertainment and hotel suites, the nation should see their president putting an end to this. That would be true leadership.

By virtue of its majority in parliament, the ANC’s affairs are the nation’s business. Mr Zuma’s ANC presidency is marked by fierce internal campaigning which tends to marginalise those who portray, at least publicly, the greatest sense of ethical leadership.

The party of Albert Luthuli, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu is at risk of being taken over by populist national-socialists in designer suits and flashy cars.

It will take true leadership to return the ANC to the values which made Luthuli, Mandela, Tambo and Sisulu such towering icons in South Africa’s history. Mr Zuma must now provide such leadership.