Jacob Zuma

12 July 2017

Dr Blade Nzimande
General Secretary
South African Communist Party

Braamfontein 

Dear Comrade General Secretary, 

Thank you for the invitation to your elective 14th National Congress, which we have carefully considered.

Both South Africa’s and Namibia’s governing parties are set to hold elective congresses before the end of this year. Those who win the leadership contests will each lead their respective parties into a general election in 2019 as their presidential candidate.

During the past year, political debate in South Africa has been dominated by the notion of state capture.

South Africa is at a crossroads, facing its biggest upheavals since independence in 1994. Globally, since the 2008 Great Recession there are growing explosive class and social conflicts due to the deepening crisis of capitalism.

On April 03, S&P Global reduced South Africa’s rating to ‘Junk’ status. South Africans flooded the streets demanding Jacob Zuma’s head.

Business elites are confused, even while mass opinion against rancid rulers consolidates: huge marches against Trump in Washington by scientists on April 22 and climate activists on April 29; and in the central South African city Mangaung, Zuma was forced to rapidly

In the midst of gorging themselves through exploitation and corruption, competing factions of the flabby ruling class in South Africa (the ruling class being capitalists, politicians and top state officials) have once again stepped into the ring to take pieces out of one another.

These are dangerous and unsettling times in South Africa, with numerous public institutions seemingly captured by a cabal around President Jacob Zuma: the public broadcaster, the intelligence agencies, the National Prosecuting Authority, and dozens of state-owned entities from the behemoth nation

[This lecture was delivered in honor of the legacy of Steven Bantu Biko to the community of Boipatong in Sedibeng, Guateng Province, South Africa on 24 September 2016. The event was hosted by the Sedibeng Regional Chapter of Black First Land First.)

Few eyebrows would have been raised were Mr. Jacob Zuma the life-president of any of the several banana republics that dot the African continent. But this is Africa’s reputed rainbow nation and the continent’s undisputed economic hub. Hell!