Thursday, February 6, 2014

Zuma will not survive second term



2014 is the likely to be the worst year, in many ways, since South Africa became a democracy. The economy, too put it mildly, does not look good and there is much discontent with the President, Mr Jacob Zuma, if not with politics in general. Yet it is highly unlikely that the ruling party will be toppled or will lose too many votes.

The fiasco around the merger of Agang and the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the DA’s initial publicising of its presidential candidate did these parties no good and indeed did South African politics no good. The reality is that such a merger was not going to garner too many new votes from the black electorate. The liberal white voter thought that this was a good move to get someone like Dr Ramphele into the DA set-up. This is not uncommon for liberals to think in a way to always protect themselves and their base while supposedly being welcoming of others. To be truly meaningful to their aspirations and be part of a real solution, white liberals will have to move beyond their “race”. This is the only way to create a truly non-racial platform where the policies of the party attract people from a wide range of backgrounds. The DA is generally seen as a “white” party  which makes it extremely unlikely that they will ever topple the ANC. For the latter to happen, another broad-based party of strength has to emerge and then perhaps, if the DA survives, they can form some form of coalition.

Considering all of this, the only concern the leadership of the ANC has to maintain power is the challenge from within, i.e. the ANC is likely to remain in power for some time, but the leadership will change with the challenge from the various factions that exist.

Mr Jacob Zuma is not the popular choice for president of South Africa, but the voters will give little indication of that later this year with general elections take place. There is a level of politics that is not always easy to analyse because like good strategists these things are kept tight, but one thing is for certain that people within the ANC are plotting the downfall of JZ – how soon remains to be seen but I would hazard a guess that he too is unlikely to serve a full second term.


http://www.news24.com/Elections/News/SA-voters-to-make-their-mark-on-7-May-20140207

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