If we have learnt one thing from our neighbours up north, it’s that ousted leaders aren’t keen to go quietly into the night.

Uncle Bob doesn’t seem to be handling his enforced retirement too well, with a report from earlier this week talking of ‘sulking’ Mugabe and wife Grace refusing to vacate the state house.

I believe the appropriate word here is ‘shem’.

Here at home we are watching Jacob Zuma fighting his own battles, and he looks determined to drag the ANC down the pisser with him.

Political commentator Justice Malala gave us a rundown of what JZ is plotting next, and this time around we’ll hear from Max du Preez.

He’s also talking about the dangers President Cyril Ramaphosa faces, especially in KZN, and of course our former leader is front and centre.

Excerpts from Max’s News24 column below:

There can be no doubt that Jacob Zuma is at the heart of the plot against Ramaphosa. Unlike his predecessors, who withdrew from active politics after their presidential term ended, he has been very active in the ANC since he was forced to resign.

He travels all over the country, he addresses rallies and congregations, he attends the ANC’s NEC meetings as an ex officio member and regularly pops up in places where Ramaphosa had been shortly before.

Zuma poses as the victim of non-Zulu speakers in the ANC and sometimes even blames white monopoly capital just to confuse people.

He knows that there is a badly bruised Zulu ego in his home province after Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma lost to Ramaphosa in the ANC elections and he’s capitalising on it.

Officially, though, his camp’s siren song is that he is the real champion of the eventual full economic emancipation of black people and the one who was going to give them their land back, while Ramaphosa was in bed with white capital and the West.

Still beating that White Monopoly Capital drum at every opportunity, I see.

Funny how he talks about being the champion of the people, whilst under his watch inequality, poverty and unemployment all increased.

But hey, the Guptas and Zuma’s children and family members sure pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.

Back to Max for some good news – Zuma isn’t as strongly positioned as he might like to think:

As things stand now, though, the Zuma grouping seems to overestimate its power and potential popular support.

Ramaphosa got a lot more support in KZN than this group wanted him to, and he also has the support of most of the SACP and Cosatu structures in the province. Ramaphosa’s support has even grown in the Free State and Northwest while his popularity in the rest of the country is probably on a higher level than on the day he got elected ANC president…

Even worse: Zuma’s fountain of money has dried up, with the Gupta empire crumbling and other benefactors realising there’s no reason any longer to throw bags of money his way. They also know that SARS, under its new leadership, is back on their case.

Zuma is likely to be faced with a multi-million rand legal bill, and all he has is his pension money – unless his son, Duduzane, can send him a few million from wherever he’s hiding. That was always the understanding, wasn’t it, that Duduzane was his proxy in the Gupta business and so a chunk of Duduzane’s fortune must be his. But how to get it into the country?

So, the talk of a new political party under Zuma is just silly, and the talk of a secession of KZN even sillier.

Yebo yes, who is going to fund that legal defence now that the Gupta well has run dry? Probably going to have to dip into his Russia Nuclear Deal savings, although I feel like Putin might have frozen those too in light of JZ’s failure to get the deal done.

Max says Cyril’s single biggest threat might come in the form of Sihle Zikalala, an MEC in KZN and ANC chair until his election was declared invalid by a court:

The 45-year-old Zikalala [below] is an energetic and popular politician and was one of the driving forces behind the Dlamini-Zuma campaign. He was seen sitting in the back of the court at Zuma’s appearance last Friday.

There is real potential that the Zuma grouping could persuade many KZN voters to vote ANC on the provincial ticket at next year’s general election, but to abstain or to vote for another party on the national ticket.

That could weaken Ramaphosa’s position, and if this group is very successful, it could even force the ANC into forming a coalition to run the national government. One of the Ramaphosa camp’s strongest arguments why he is the right man for the job was that he is the ANC’s best chance to do well in the 2019 elections…

Imagine how full circle South African politics will have come if members of the ANC start encouraging their supporters to vote for the EFF?

Lastly, what can Cyril do to ensure he quashes such an uprising before it gathers more steam?

He needs an early win or two. Explaining that he is good for confidence in the economy or stating that he was the reason why the currency has strengthened and the country has avoided a further credit downgrade is too vague in our present populist climate.

I think his best bet would be an ambitious move in the next few months to hand over land in and around the cities and towns to large numbers of landless people and people now living in over-populated townships and squatter camps.

Cue that auntie of yours starting up again about emigrating to Australia.

That’s if she’s not still in the Telkom shop ranting about Wi-Fi.

One thing is for sure, Zuma’s reign as president was almost as damaging to the ANC as it was to the country as a whole.

[source:news24]