Jacob Zuma Research Articles

Prospects and Challenges of Radical Economic Transformation

In 2014, the then president of South Africa, Mr Jacob Zuma, delivered his State of the Nation Address in Parliament and promised that economic transformation would take centre stage. This promise was made against the backdrop of transformation having stalled and difficulties being experienced in reducing social inequality and poverty. He called on social partners to debate the issue of wage inequality and the possibility of instituting a national minimum wage to reduce income inequalities. He promised that the structure of the economy would be transformed through industrialisation and broad-based black economic empowerment and through strengthening and expanding the role of the state in the economy. However, these commitments have not been kept and remain under threat given the extent of corruption in national government departments and state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The revelations in the financial reports of the Public Protector and the Auditor-General on SOEs raise key questions relating to the role of the national government departments and SOEs in driving radical economic transformation. A fundamental and radical change is required if the economy is to be run to the benefit of all poor South Africans, the majority of whom are black people. One possibility is to institute ethical leadership and an executive that is accountable. Twenty-three years into freedom and democracy, and the majority of South Africans, black people in particular, are still economically disempowered. This is a concern given the developmental objectives of government as espoused in its National Development Plan (NDP) 2030. As long as the country continues to battle with the persistent triple challenge of poverty, unemployment and inequality, radical economic transformation remains a pipe dream. Considering the current state of affairs, the objective of radical economic transformation (i.e. to place the economy on a qualitatively different path that ensures more rapid and sustainable growth, higher investment, increased employment, reduced inequality and the deracialisation of the economy) is far-fetched. Any political posture not aimed at giving effect to the NDP, the New Growth Path and the Industrial Policy Action Plan to stimulate growth, employment and the re-industrialisation of the South African economy will not lead to radical economic transformation.

Jansen, J. (2017). As By Fire: The End of the South African University. Pretoria, South Africa: Tafelberg Publishers

Jacob Zuma chose to mark the Day of Reconciliation by reaching out to protesting students and promising free higher education, an unsurprising but contentious move. That act spurred me to finish reading As by Fire, Jonathan Jansen’s analysis of the responses of South African university vice-chancellors to the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall (and associated) movements. By pure chance, I happened to be on the UCT campus on 9 March 2015, the day Chumani Maxwele decided to douse the statue of Cecil John Rhodes in excrement, kicking off a protest movement that called not only for the removal of the offensive statue, but for a removal of the hostile organisational climate that many black students felt permeated UCT and other Historically White Universities (HWUs).

South Africa Suffers Capitalist Crisis Déjà Vu

Business tycoon Cyril Ramaphosa, who, according to Forbes, was worth more than $450 million in 2015, has been the president of the ruling African National Congress since December 2017. Despite the change in ruling-party leadership, the residual old-guard politicians from the era of Jacob Zuma’s patrimonial, corrupt regime still retain enormous power.

The Decline of the African National Congress in South Africa’s 2016 Municipal Elections

Using data from a nationally representative post-election public opinion survey, the article argues that the electoral losses experienced by the African National Congress (ANC) in the 2016 municipal election were a manifestation of an attitudinal shift among the governing party’s traditional support base. ANC vote choice was influenced by a combination of performance-based evaluations of the party at both the national and local levels: namely, a growing trust deficit in the ANC and its leadership, and perceived service delivery failures at the local level. The analysis concludes that poor performance and distrust of incumbents, including a sitting president, can have a significant bearing on voter attitudes and behaviour at elections. Moreover, despite the replacement of Jacob Zuma with President Cyril Ramaphosa in December 2017, the ANC will need to continue to address its internal leadership issues and perceptions of corruption to secure substantial victories in future elections.

The African Renaissance as a reversal of conquest expressed in naming: An Afrocentric engagement

The African Renaissance is historically an African revolutionary project aimed at reclaiming and reviving African heritage that was destroyed by European slavery and colonialism. One of the manifestations of the African Renaissance was to do away with European names imposed on African countries, and to replace them with African names. While this was a good move, it was a half-measure because it ignored the gender aspect of colonial naming which saw a European cultural legacy of naming women after their husbands’ surnames remaining intact. Socially, this colonial practice promoted gender inequality by elevating husbands’ family names while relegating wives’ family names to a lower place. Politically, the exercise reduced women into being their husbands’ shadows even when women use double-barrel surnames. This colonial legacy’s suffocating effect on women’s identities was laid bare towards the African National Congress’ (ANC) elective conference in 2017. The Zuma family name was used to frustrate Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s contestation for the ANC’s presidency when her opponents argued that being the ex-wife of Jacob Zuma, the then ANC’s and South Africa’s president, would deter her from acting independently. The central argument here is that for the African Renaissance project to be meaningful and relevant for women, it must reclaim African women’s cultural right to retain their own family names and not adopt their husbands’.

Mapping the unrapeability of white and black womxn

abstractRedi Thlabi’s book Khwezi: The Remarkable Story of Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo, published in September 2017, recalled national attention to the 2006 Jacob Zuma rape trial, a deep scar on the body of our democracy. Thlabi’s book demonstrates the cost incurred by a womxn who accused a powerful man of rape. During the trail Zuma’s lawyer, Advocate Kemp, repeatedly implied that Kuzwayo was sexually promiscuous and therefore ‘unrapeable’. This idea – that the rapes of certain womxn do not count as harm – shapes the way in which South African society responds (or fails to respond) to contemporary instances of sexual violence in significant ways. This article aims to interrogate the notion of ‘un/rapeability’ and, in particular, to situate it in relation to the colonisation of land, as well as the intersecting racialised and gendered formations of coloniality. A central process of colonising the land of South Africa was the establishment of racialised and gendered dynamics of control: the conquering of both ‘black’ and ‘white’ womxn. While white womxn were possessed as reproducers of race, black womxn were possessed as not-womxn. These racialised, gendered constructions have produced complexly disparate notions of respectability and harm, in relation to which only certain womxn, at particular historical moments and under certain circumstances, are able to claim status as ‘legitimate’ victims/survivors of rape. In elucidating the uneven nature of the contemporary landscape of sexual violence, this article aims to trouble the notion that some womxn are ‘unrapeable’ and therefore unharmed by the sexual violations enacted upon them.

Marking Constitutional Transitions: The Law and Politics of Constitutional Implementation in South Africa

Marking Constitutional Transitions: The Law and Politics of Constitutional Implementation in South Africa

The Zuma moment: between tender-based capitalists and radical economic transformation

ABSTRACTThe Jacob Zuma Presidency (2009–2017) was dogged by persistent allegations of corruption and the looting of State Owned Enterprises (SOE’s) by those allied to him. It led to allegations of state capture that placed the Gupta family at the centre of this project. These allegations have been highly contested, with Zuma supporters arguing that he has come under attack because of his support for the BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), which they hold challenges Western imperial interests. Alongside this are those aligned to the Gupta family, arguing that the real culprits of state capture, both historically and in contemporary South Africa, is White Monopoly Capital (WMC), through its ability to determine macro-economic policy. At the heart of this contest is what has come to be known as tender-based capitalists who sought to use access to SOE’s for the accumulation of capital. This process has been defended on the basis that it has the potential to lead a radical economic transformation (RET) that that can challenge the power of WMC. Others have held that this argument is a mere fig leaf for the looting of state coffers, eroding its capacity for deeper developmental initiatives and fostering a parasitic class. This article that focusses on this debate that entered the heart of the African National Congress (ANC) and threatened to tear it apart takes the form of a conjunctural analysis; conjuncture defined as an amalgam ‘of circumstances, a convergence of events, an intersection of contingencies and necessities, a complex, overdetermined state of affairs-usually producing a crisis, leading to breaking point, driving to historic crossroads’ (Mowitt 2015, 125).

RISE AND FALL OF JACOB ZUMA

In May 2014 I suddenly received a telephone call from the South African Embassy in Moscow, then an official invitation signed by Jacob Zuma followed: he wanted me to be present at his second inauguration. Unfortunately I failed to do it, I was still recovering from a surgical operation, but the very fact was significant, not because I had been involved, but because it symbolized friendly relations that existed between the South African president and those in Russia who took part in supporting the long struggle against the apartheid regime.

ISolezwe’s coverage of the May 2008 xenophobic riots: An irresolute start and an ambivalent end

Abstract Each language has a multiplicity of registers and the media rely on these ‘differentiators’ to convey news to designated audiences, who will imbibe the news with the intended meaning. IsiZulu is one of South Africa’s Lingua francas and has two successful news publications, iLanga and iSolezwe, both written in isiZulu but vastly different in how they convey, craft and package news. This article aims to examine how iSolezwe, an isiZulu-language tabloid, used two editorials to shape its stance on the May 2008 xenophobic riots. Through the editorials agenda-setting execution, we are able to analyse the tabloids ideology; even when the news reports, and photo-journalistic pieces offered ‘impartially full’ accounts, but, metaphors stray from headline to headline, photographs that are meaningless in themselves become significant when juxtaposed to a piece of text (Fowler 1991: 225). Anton Harber in examining the xenophobic coverage in the print media asked the question, ‘what is it we want from our media at a time of ugly anti-social violence?’ (2008: 161). ISolezwe’s coverage began with ambivalence, exhibiting sympathy towards the frustrated South African perpetrators, but was shocked at the level of violence. The news reports were more ‘balanced’ in their coverage, without assuming a position in contrast to the editorials. Examining the entire coverage, a theme is evident, from ambivalent editorials, to news reports that were more balanced. The second editorial dovetailed from the then president of the African National Congress (ANC) Jacob Zuma’s condemnation of the violence but the tabloid did not condemn the xenophobic riots outright, and its reporting ends with a repatriation theme and the tabloid never explored notions of integration.

De] constructing South Africa's Jacob Zuma led ANC: An Afrocentric perspective

Based on the Afrocentric perspective, the central thesis of this paper is that if the African National Congress (ANC) is to evade the wrath of coalition politics in the near future (year 2019); it needs more than its traditional support base and appeals for liberation rhetoric. Like other liberation movements cum ruling political parties in Southern Africa, indications are that ANC cannot save itself from the brutality of competitive politics and electoral democracy. While the ANC is based in South Africa, it remains the political heritage of all Africans, and as such, it can only survive further degeneration through the collective efforts of pan‐Africanists in the country and across the corners of the continent. The fact that President Jacob Zuma led ANC did not have a safe liberalised space for counsel by non‐active members has rendered any possible renewal through the support of all Africans a pipe dream. Although the renewal of the ANC may be necessary for the sake of preserving liberation heritage in South Africa and Africa at large, it is concluded that the weakening of dominant political parties such as the ANC is a necessary ingredient for healthy and functioning democracies.

A Fresh Start for South Africa?

Cyril Ramaphosa, the new president, needs to restore public confidence in a ruling party eroded by the corruption associated with his predecessor, Jacob Zuma. Here are some ideas he could try.

South Africa after Zuma

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa appears committed to purging the corruption of his predecessor Jacob Zuma, and to rebuilding governmental capacity and improving policy execution. But it will take more than a change in the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) to restore South Africa's standing as a model of African democracy and continental leadership.

The RARE Leadership Model, Jacob Zuma and Nkandla: Thoughts on the Virtues of Leadership

Scholarly and journalistic work on the critical state of leadership in Africa abound. Hellicy Ngambi (2011) attributes Africa’s poor development, despite its wealth of diversity in natural and human resources, to leadership issues that need to be explored, considered and addressed. To confront the development challenges of a continent diverse in human and natural resources she proposes her principal and value-based, RARE (Responsible, Accountable, Relevant and Ethical) leadership model, as the most effective leadership approach. Popular perceptions suggest that, under the leadership of Jacob Zuma, the reality surrounding the leadership of many African countries has now also become the reality of South Africa. This article makes a distinction between ‘leadership as influence’ and ‘leadership with character’ – the latter embodied in the attributes of Ngambi’s RARE leadership model. Ngambi recommends that further studies be conducted to explore the application of RARE leadership. Referring to the controversial Nkandla case, in which unlawful conduct and maladministration was found to have occurred in relation to the upgrades of Jacob Zuma’s private residence, this paper explores the applicability of the RARE leadership model to an assessment of the leadership of South Africa’s president.  Â

South Africa's Post-apartheid Foreign Policy Making and the Role of the President

Who makes South Africa's foreign policy? This has been an area of continuous discussion following South Africa's transition to democracy in 1994. In the foreign policy analysis discourse considerable attention has been given to the role of the head of state and government in shaping foreign policy, particularly in developed countries. With South Africa's own President assuming a predominant role in foreign policy, there is a need for further reflection on the impact of this position in foreign policy decision making. Using existing theory and current analysis this article highlights the different approaches adopted by South Africa's first four democratically elected presidents, from the international statesmanship of Mandela, to the micro-management of Mbeki, the stabiliser role of Motlanthe and the consensus-building to absent leader position of Jacob Zuma. Drawing on Joseph Nye's discussion of the characterisation of transformational and transactional leadership, this analysis traces the approaches of the different Presidents in shaping South Africa's foreign policy and international engagement.

Presidencies and Policy in Post-apartheid South Africa

From a policy perspective, the question naturally arises as to whether there have been major changes in policy making and associated issues in South Africa since 1994. Arguably, the first five years or so focused on institutional reforms and legislative interventions. In the late 1990s the South African government established specific processes and institutions for policy development and coordination. Â In 2005-6, specific processes and institutions for long-term planning and monitoring and evaluation were formally established. The paper examines the evolution of policy making and coordination in South Africa since the late 1990s, it also reflects on monitoring and evaluation as well as long-term planning. The erstwhile Policy Coordination and Advisory Services (PCAS), which had been the main engine of policy (coordination and other aspects) in post-apartheid South Africa that was established towards the end of 1997 in the Office of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki (at the time) was disbanded in 2010. The PCAS, popularly known as the Policy Unit, coordinated all policies and reforms, and led in planning as well as monitoring and evaluation, among other responsibilities. From 2010, functions were institutionalised or strengthened (e.g. government departments have been established to deal with planning as well as monitoring and evaluation). There have not been major shifts and/or changes in policy coordination, planning as well as monitoring and evaluation since the late 1990s. However, there appears to be a shift in emphasis to focusing more on implementation. This might have been one of the biggest mistakes of the Jacob Zuma administration because capacity for policy thinking is critical. It would seem that the Thabo Mbeki administration focused specifically on policy. The Nelson Mandela administration, which was a Government of National Unity, was largely focused on various policy, legislative and institutional reforms with very limited capacity for policy making, coordination and monitoring and evaluation as well as long-term planning.Â

South Africa's Prospects Under Cyril Ramaphosa

The African National Congress (ANC) narrowly avoided a damaging split at the recently concluded 54th national conference. South Africa is, however, firmly in a “muddling along” scenario. The result of the elections for the 86 elected members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) led by newly elected ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa reflects an organization that went into the conference sharply divided and it will take time for these divisions to subside. The recall of Jacob Zuma is one of the key decisions now confronting the NEC. The longer Zuma stays in power the better the opposition parties will do during the national and provincial elections in 2019. However, in spite of the narrow victory of Ramaphosa, Zuma and his incoherent, large cabinet may be recalled sooner rather than later to avoid a further downgrade of South Africa’s long-term local currency debt ratings. Since Ramaphosa currently serves as deputy president of South Africa and therefore is a member of cabinet the problems associated with two centers of power (between Luthuli House and the Union Buildings) in the period leading up to national and provincial elections in 2019 are manageable. However, Zuma’s announcement on fee-free education only hours before the start of the 54th Conference clearly demonstrates the potential damage that he could wreak in the months that lie ahead, particularly given his stated intention to press ahead with a hugely expensive and superfluous nuclear energy deal. The question is how rapidly the NEC will unite behind Ramaphosa to recall him. Based on the forecasts presented in Fate of the Nation it seems likely that the ANC will retain its status as governing party during the 2019 elections, with around 53% of the vote, down from 62% in 2014. Such an outcome will avert the need for a coalition at national level. The ANC could however, lose its majority in the critically important Gauteng province. Only a coalition between the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) would be able to put together a governing opposition alliance in Gauteng – a difficult and unlikely partnership given the ideological distance between these two parties. This analysis effectively makes the EFF a potential 2019 kingmaker in Gauteng. The Western Cape, the only province currently governed by an opposition party (the Democratic Alliance), will retain that status and ANC support in rural provinces will remain firm, particularly given the focus on transition of land to rural communities as announced during the conference. The win by Ramaphosa has averted a major crisis for the ANC and it may yet retain Gauteng province (in alliance with others), but it is not going to be an easy ride. The ANC will, however, eventually emerge significantly more united than at present and the outcome may save the Tripartite Alliance that includes the South African Communist Party and labour union COSATU from disbandment. In terms of its foreign relations South Africa has its work cut out to rebuild the respect and trust of others. Generally, values such as democracy, human rights and good governance have found limited expression in foreign policy under Mbeki and Zuma (the Mandela era was an aberration), and it is unlikely that this will change under a Ramaphosa government although there may be some tonal adaptation. In addition, absent structural reform in the military, South Africa’s ability to contribute to peacekeeping will continue its steady decline.

A ‘Counter-Monument’ to the Liberation Struggle: The Deployment of Struggle Songs in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Struggle songs have continued to pulsate in South Africa after the advent of democracy in 1994. This article explores how ideas about the history of the liberation struggle are mobilised through the performance of such songs and given meaning in the present. Two case studies are presented: then ANC Youth League President Julius Malema’s utilisation of the ‘Dubula ibhunu’ song in 2010 and the subsequent court battle with AfriForum, and the performance of ‘Inde le ndlela’ by President Jacob Zuma. The two leaders deployed these songs – which travelled through Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) camps during the liberation struggle – to convey important political messages to their followers and to produce specific favourable identities and genealogies for themselves. The article draws on James Young’s work to argue that song operates as a dynamic ‘counter-monument’ to the liberation struggle, providing its singers with an authentic connection to the past. It also examines how notions about history and heritage and different forms of commemoration are mobilised in the debates about how struggle songs should be memorialised in post-apartheid South Africa.

‘Lawfare’ in South Africa and Its Effects on the Judiciary

Abstract This article identifies three senses of the term ‘lawfare’ in the South African context. In the first and most standard sense of the term, law was abused by the state during the pre-democratic era in order to construct a racist state. In the second sense, litigation was used in the period 1910–1993 as a weapon of the weak by those excluded from the franchise, in order to resist oppression and rule by law. The third sense of lawfare overlaps with the second but is associated with the judicialisation of politics in the era of constitutional democracy. It refers to the use of litigation to resolve contentious political disputes in spite of the existence of many non-curial constitutional safeguards. Using examples, the article shows that lawfare in this third sense was a feature of the presidency of Jacob Zuma and that it was triggered by the rise of nepotism, corruption and state capture well as the abdication of governance responsibilities to the judiciary. It argues that because the courts have been drawn into the public arena and thrust into a relationship of constant tension with the political branches, the judiciary has become the primary casualty of this barrage of lawfare.

Who can stop the rot?

It is fitting that the first article in this issue of South African Crime Quarterly (SACQ) speaks to the South African Police Service’s tackling of commercial crime. It is increasingly clear that corporate–political collusion poses a serious threat to South Africa’s democratic gains. In recent months journalists have started to pick through a trove of emails released in June, known as the #GuptaLeaks. In the process they have connected the dots between tens of thousands of exchanges among the notorious Gupta business family, management of parastatals, governmentministers and allies of President Jacob Zuma, including his son Duduzane. The emails paint a terrifying picture of state capture and abuse.