South Africa's Most Corrupt President
On the precipitous downfall of Jacob Zuma
News of South Africa charging Israel with ‘genocide’ at the International Court of Justice threatens to obscure even bigger news concerning the nation’s domestic politics. As the country heads to a general election this year, former President Jacob Zuma has been officially barred from running for office. This came in the wake of his refusal to endorse his former party, the African National Congress (ANC). In a 2023 address to the nation, Zuma stated that “[my] conscience will not allow me to lie to the people people of South Africa and to pretend that the ANC of (incumbent President Cyril) Ramaphosa is the ANC of (Albert) Luthuli, (Oliver) Tambo and Mandela.” Instead, he chose to cast his vote for the newly-formed uMkhonto weSizwe (‘Spear of the Nation’, also known as MK) party. MK took its name after the paramilitary wing of the ANC during apartheid, which makes Zuma’s opposition to the current government all the more pronounced.
Rather than treating this as a loss, the ANC should say good riddance, for it was Zuma’s doing that led the party from an exemplar model of popular democracy to the corrupt, divisive and unpopular political entity it is today. According to historian Thula Simpson, the year 2021 marked the first time since the fall of apartheid that the Congress fell below 50% of the national vote. The main reason for this decline in popularity was the allegations of corruption that have plagued the party - the most severe of these were launched against the Zuma presidency. Addressing the social unrest in the same year, former President Mbeki repeated what Mandela warned him in 1997: “that the ANC was changing negatively because since it became a governing party in 1994, people joined - not because they believe in its policies but because they saw it as a route to power and self-enrichment.” Zuma exemplifies this venality with his lavish spending on his private compound, the Nkandla Homestead.
Zuma started construction of the estate in the KwaZulu-Natal province in 2000, but over the years, it had been constantly under upgrade and renovation, at staggering financial cost. For example, according to Simpson, the upgrades in 2010 were estimated to cost R203 million (roughly $11 million), with Zuma himself only liable for R10.6 million (roughly $575000). Among the more questionable spending items was a ‘fire pool’ - basically a swimming pool which Zuma justifies as for use only in case of a fire. Mihenle Makhanya, the estate’s architect, touted the pool’s fire-fighting abilities, but was tongue-tied “when asked where the fire-hoses were.” More audaciously, Simpson adds, Zuma “also alerted taxpayers to be prepared to cough up more money, should the police recommend further upgrades.” When news broke out of Zuma’s lavish spending and appropriation of government funds, then-Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa threatened law enforcement action against the publication of pictures of the homestead. Mthethwa was also in charge of the police during the bloody Marikana massacre of 2012, wherein 34 striking miners lost their lives during a confrontation with the strike-breaking officers. It was the most lethal use of police force against civilians in South Africa since the Soweto uprising of 1976.
Another notable instance of Zuma’s corruption concerns his dealings with the Gupta family. Consisting of wealthy and entrepreneurial brothers, the Indian-immigrant family sought to increase their influence by forging close ties with the Zuma family and administration. As shown by Simpson, since 2003, Zuma’s son Duduzane had a job at one of their companies, Sahara Computers. The President’s daughter Duduzile became director of the same company in 2008, And in 2010, Zuma’s financée was on the payroll of JIC mining services, a Gupta-controlled company. In the same year, Duduzane also partnered with the Guptas in a major BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) deal, which involves a R9 billion (roughly $487 million) stake in the multi-national steel conglomerate ArcelorMittal.
To deflect allegations of state capture, the Gupta and Zuma families hired the UK-based consulting firm Bell Pottinger to salvage their reputations by portraying their opponents as part of the ‘white monopoly capital’. The race-based social media campaign was filled with conspiracy theorizing from Zuma, as well as parody accounts of established news outlet such as the Huffington Post, Sunday Times, and Daily Maverick. Former staffers of Bell Pottinger alleged that the firm hired fake commentators, bloggers and Twitter accounts with the aim of portraying South African politicians like Pravin Gordhan, as well as billionaires like Johann Rupert, as the face of the ‘white monopoly capital’ conspiracy. However, it was reported that the firm’s lack of expertise in social media technology undermined the racially-charged smear campaign.
Bell Pottinger went into bankruptcy in 2017 because of their misconduct in South Africa, and the Guptas fled to Dubai following the scandal, only to be arrested in 2022. The name Gupta has become synonymous with corruption in the South African political vocabulary. Amid this thick cloud of scandal, Zuma resigned as President in 2018, and was arrested for corruption charges on July 7th, 2021. But it was Zuma’s arrest that sparked the nation-wide social unrest mentioned earlier. Two days later, on the 9th, Zuma’s daughter Duduzile circulated a poster on her Twitter feed calling for a shut down of KwaZulu-Natal - including shops, factories, roads and government - until her father is free.
President Cyril Ramaphosa called the violence, looting and disruption that followed an ‘insurrection’ that had ‘failed’. On July 19th, estimates from the South African Property Owners Association showed that 161 malls, 11 warehouses, and 8 factories had been “extensively damaged”, 3000 stores had been looted, at a total of R50 billion (about $2.7 billion) lost in GDP. At least 330 lives were lost during the upheaval. This, of course, happened during the country’s second year under the Covid-19 pandemic.
Jacob Zuma’s downfall provides ample material for a political satire worthy of Armando Iannucci, but he managed at the same time to bring the ANC and South Africa down with him. It is incumbent to South African voters this year - ANC or otherwise - to repudiate Zuma’s toxic influence in the ballot box.