AFTER ZUMA - HOBSON'S CHOICE

The march of recents events strongly suggest that Zuma will not serve the remainder of his term as president. With the approaching local elections, the ANC will, in the interests of party unity, rally around him. Thereafter he will be given his marching orders, much to the delight of those impatiently waiting in the wings to succeed him. Thus far there are two candidates ostensibly vying to head up the ANC after Zuma leaves office. They are Cyril Ramaphosa and Zuma's ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. In a perfect parliamentary system a ruling political party chooses its leader within a framework requiring focus on the long-term good of the country - this means a leader vested with statesmanship as opposed to being a mediocre garden variety politician. As a prerequisite to statesmanship the qualities of integrity, responsibility, accountability, conscience and character are essential. The question then arises whether the contest between the two contenders will be based on their respective leadership qualities. The political dynamic in the ANC for replacing Zuma is a power struggle between competing factions. The presence or absence of leadership qualities is a non-sequitur. All that matters is factional self-interest with a large dose of patronage between those who support Dlamini-Zuma or Ramaphosa - principally the coalition between the KwaZulu-Natal and three provincial premiers for the former; the trade unions for the latter. Who then will be better for the country? There are those who predict that Dlamini-Zuma will be much like her ex-husband. Also, her actions while minister of health in promoting a "quack" cure for AIDS based on a toxic industrial solvent, and purging the country's drug-safety authority when it objected to it, should decidedly be a non-starter to her appointment. That leaves Ramaphosa - the well-connected billionaire politician who does not need the trappings of the state to enrich himself. He has already acquired his riches by becoming a major beneficiary through gratuitous empowerment deals. He is beholden to his party for his wealth, and refuses, in the name of party loyalty, to distance himself from Zuma and his political chicanery. Instead he blindly supports and defends Zuma by dishing up rhetoric over reality. He will continue to do so, notwithstanding the court's finding that Zuma had violated his oath of office. Ramaphosa lacks the essential qualities of leadership - principle, political will and independence to govern effectively. The French political philosopher Alexis du Tocqueville observed that we get the leaders we deserve. What did we do to deserve the current incumbent, and the ones now positioning to control our futures? Unless one thinks otherwise, it is a 'soup' question.