Manuel could tip the balance in a Zuma cabinet
February 16, 2009
By Donwald Pressly
Dodgy people are lurking in the upper ranks of the ANC - joined last week by axed national spokesperson Carl Niehaus, who seems unable to pay even his laundry bill without obfuscation. On top of the election pile - which includes Niehaus - is party leader Jacob Zuma.
Zuma may well not have a guilty bone in his body, but he will lead the governing movement into the April 22 election with more than a question mark hanging over his head. In any normal democracy, this would not be an ideal team of people to include on one's election lists.
Politics is a flawed science, particularly, it seems, in southern Africa
It is hard to find a political party in South Africa that remains entirely untainted by scandal |
. It has the habit of throwing up people that the electorate finds surprisingly palatable. It is hard to find a political party in South Africa that remains entirely untainted by scandal. The Travelgate scandal, for instance, involved both governing and opposition party MPs.
That is why it is so important that Manuel and his treasury team maintain their grip on the national tiller. And why it is critical that Barbara Hogan, a woman of enormous integrity, holds on to the health portfolio after the election.
One can't think of many others in the cabinet who really deserve to remain on, least of all foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, minister in the presidency Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and agriculture and land affairs minister Lulu Xingwana - who have the subtlety of battering rams.
Dlamini-Zuma has turned our once proud human rights-directed foreign policy to tatters. Xingwana has simply mismanaged the land reform programme and almost destroyed the land bank.
Tshabalala-Msimang, before leaving the health ministry, almost succeeded in destroying the private pharmaceutical retail industry and should be the last to be considered to run any ministry. The remainder of the cabinet are simply grey.
Independent Newspapers correspondent John Carlin cut to the chase when he asked Manuel exactly how he coped with the image of the ANC as a corrupt force.
Carlin's friend had sent him a note saying: "I think our political landscape is changing and the ANC has fallen from being our liberation movement to being your bog-standard, corrupt and self-serving political party, like any other political organisation."
Manuel replied: "That is brutal, but it's not without some truth."
Carlin asked about Zuma. Was he the person to appoint as president when the times called for unambiguous messages on the unacceptability of corruption? Manuel said it was "a very difficult question".
Manuel recalled that an economist had noted that Zuma's alleged corruption involved peanuts - about $50 000 (R500 400) - compared to the amounts US bankers spent redecorating their offices with money received from Washington bail-outs.
In a clear reference to Zimbabwe, Manuel noted that there were countries where the head of state called the central bank and asked for money. It would be unthinkable for this to happen here.
Manuel believed Zuma could turn into an exemplary national tale. "He so badly wants to demonstrate to others that you don't need to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth to be able to do stuff.
"The one strength he has is that he knows what he does not know."
Manuel argued that Zuma required good advisers. One can only hope that honest Trevor is one of them.
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