Zuma’s friends will have to kill millions

Julius Malema and Zwelinzima Vavi have both uttered statements that they are prepared to kill anyone standing between Zuma and the presidency. They have also in the past insinuated that the free press, the due process of law, the political opposition, and even political activity within the ANC, have somehow conspired against Zuma. But the real threats to Zuma come not from any of the above but from the poor and the unemployed. If Malema and Vavi want to kill to protect Zuma they will have to start here.

Jacob Zuma has had a tough 18 months. His financial advisor was convicted of fraud. He was fired by President Mbeki as South Africa’s deputy president. He was charged with but acquitted of raping a family friend. Throughout this period he has himself been under investigation for corruption. The political opposition and the media have had a field day with such scandal and political intrigue. In every case, though, constitutionally enshrined principles and processes were allowed to run their course.

Now Vavi and Malema want to use killing to influence these processes. This implies political assassinations, the murder of judges, the disappearance of journalists and newspaper editors. There is no other final logical interpretation of what they have in mind. But such means would do little to bolster Zuma’s political career. The real threat he faces comes not from constitutional principles but from the vast economic inequalities that South Africa confronts. There must be no doubt in any South African’s mind that if these are not adequately addressed during Zuma’s possible two terms in office between 2009 and 2018 they will have dramatic political consequences.

Despite the ANC’s various successes in service delivery and the rollout of social grants about 40% of South Africans still live on under R3000 per annum. It is further unlikely that the state will be any more successful in service delivery than it has already been with the civil service arguably functioning at the peak of its potential – as inefficient as that is. Nor is transformation and redistribution ever likely to be sufficient to bolster living standards adequately. Agriculture for example, which receives so much government attention for redistribution, contributes only 3% of GDP. No matter how much expropriation, or transformation, or BEE takes place in that sector you can only split up 3% of GDP so many ways. It cannot alleviate rural poverty although continuing agricultural uncertainly can drive up food prices.

Similar arguments hold true in mining and manufacturing and a host of other sectors targeted by the state for transformation in the vain hope that that will help to eliminate poverty and inequality.

We can state with certainty today that redistribution will never succeed in meeting that goal – it is mathematically impossible.

If poverty and inequality are therefore the main threats that Zuma faces and continuing along the current ideological path of the ANC almost guarantees that poverty and inequality will at some point in the future serve to unseat or seriously undermine the Zuma administration then what should he do?

Some of his backers might suggest killing the poor and the unemployed. Zuma should rather consider simply ensuring that South African children leave the school system literate and numerate and that those children have access to tertiary education – in a technical or academic field. This will require the scrapping of outcomes based education, more mother tongue education, reopening the teacher training colleges with free bursaries for any student who will later teach in the state school system, and free tertiary education for poor, and therefore mainly black, South Africans. Such a high standard of public education will do away with much of the rationale for BEE and AA provisions. This will aid in facilitating a free market for skills and capital which will in turn bolster investment and growth.

If these provisions are met and the state at the same time learns to provide security and good public healthcare then it is difficult to see why South Africa could not grow at a rate necessary to eradicate poverty and inequality and ensure that South Africa becomes a middle class, industrialized, tertiary sector economy.

If Zuma survives the corruption charges against him, and the damage done to his standing by Malema and Vavi, he then faces his greatest challenge. That will be to turn the ANC and the government away from the damaging ideology of redistribution that can do little more than sustain a status quo of poverty. If he manages to do that and to set in place the two main conditions necessary to grow South Africa’s economy then he will have done as a much as is possible to eliminate threats to his presidency. The free media, the ANC, and the even the political opposition will no doubt applaud him if successful and he will have nothing to fear from an independent judiciary.

However if killing is again to become a legitimate political tool in the hands of ANC leaders, then we can be certain that the poor and the unemployed will sooner rather than later be on the receiving end. They are the real threat to Zuma. The free press, political opposition, the judiciary, and other ‘imperialist forces’ are a smokescreen just as they were in Zimbabwe where today the poor and the unemployed are terrorized and killed for being the real threat to Mugabe.