The Madness of King Zuma

It was nearly a decade ago that Jacob Zuma sacked Nhlanhla Nene and appointed Des van Rooyen as Minister of Finance. Much of what happened has been drowned out by pursuant crises. But the events of that day are worth revisiting.

Earlier on Wednesday the 9th of December 2015, Angela Merkel was awarded Person of the Year by Time, a bizarre magazine that manages to blend (some) nominative determinism with garbage with an unpleasant lull before a painful encounter in the dentist’s chair. It should have been instructive.

That afternoon in South Africa, a notoriously unbuggable Zuma summoned Nene for a brief meeting – the latter having emerged from an ordinary presentation on the state of the economy to cabinet colleagues. Once the meeting was concluded, Zuma boarded his cavalcade for the drive to Sandton where a group of black executives had assembled to listen to him speak.

On the way a statement was drafted: “I have decided to remove Mr Nhlanhla Nene as Minister of Finance, ahead of his deployment to another strategic position. Mr Nene has done well since his appointment as Minister of Finance during a difficult economic climate…Mr Nene enjoys a lot of respect in the sector locally and abroad, having also served as a deputy Minister of Finance previously...the new deployment of Mr Nene will be announced in due course."

Zuma arrived at the event late. By that time, the statement was already making its way to newsrooms. Ray Hartley, writing for The Rand Daily Mail franchise of Times Media, was one of the first out the blocks, composing a piece entitled: “Zuma’s project to capture the Treasury is now complete”.

In Sandton Zuma’s tardiness irked the executives. But their annoyance quickly turned to amazement when his address began. Footage captured of his address shows Patrice Motsepe, who had introduced the President, turned in his chair staring at Zuma, his mouth agape.

Shades of Mugabe

In a subliminal piece of analysis, Rian Malan would seize the contents of this speech for Politicsweb a few days later. In Going The Full Mugabe, Malan noted that Zuma was uncharacteristically speaking off the cuff at the event: “without the benefit of written material he so frequently stumbles over”.

Here, Zuma went bumbling-charging from one shambolic take to another – but he did manage to articulate the most highly charged of points, something he very clearly believed in: the way the world did its business just didn’t suit him.

The story the following morning wasn’t just the currency markets who started punishing Zuma. A bizarre line of defence emerged, exploring the depths of intellectual poverty – like an advanced experience of Panyaza Lesufi-ism seven years before its time. “Zuma is merely enacting his agenda of establishing a generation of black industrialists,” stormed one of his loyalists. Recriminations quickly mutated racial, with the Stellenbosch mafia and their friends being fingered as market conspirators.

Zuma underestimated how quickly and convincingly he’d need to defend his decision to sack Nene. But there were grounds for a defence: had he adopted the Stiglitz-Varoufakis-Piketty continuum, had he remarked words to the effect of: ”the foundation of modern monetary policy is inequality…that has intensified through leverage mechanisms such as…debt frameworks, interest rate systems and quantitative easing which inherently channel resources upward of the grasp of Africans” and had he positioned Nene as a foot soldier not of transparency and responsible fiscal management but of these forces working against ordinary people, he would have found an audience in addition to the baying markets.

The irony was: this was the position he took on Wednesday night, where he’d gone all Frantz Fanon, freedom fighter and polytechnic economist in less than one hour. It is the language of classical economic grievance theory, as applicable then as it is now – evidenced by the latest open letter (signed by Thomas Piketty) demanding that the G20 establish a group similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to address the “inequality emergency”.

Reloading

In London, then a global financial centre, institutional investors quickly drafted memos and presentations. An Australian trader, regarded as being one of hardest in the Square Mile, had seen Zuma’s speech on the SABC YouTube channel and invited a group to watch it on Friday. Thereafter he spoke frankly to the assembled: “right, I dunno what he was talking about, but I do know that the fired minister was resisting the restructuring of the Airbus deal, a client of ours, and a client of many others here,” he said, looking around the room.

So, the markets spent the weekend reloading ammunition. Zuma buckled. Des was defenestrated – but not before his pudgy little fingers were permitted some fiddling around. London’s view was mirrored from Singapore to Chicago: this was a heist, Zuma was a crafty coward, and like all cowards – unwilling to maintain his actions as resistance to people who, in his words: “aren’t friends”. Markets, after all, do scoundrels – but not cowards.

Unleashed

That Wednesday Jacob Zuma unleashed forces that would stalk a country for a decade. The Guptas, a farcical commission of inquiry around them and the revelation that no political will existed to corner the malevolent energy that had poisoned the country since its arms deal led to massive outflow of brains and wills, briefly interrupted by the inconsequential “Ramaphoria”, before the appetite to loot was renewed through a new generation of violent tenderpreneurs. In 2023 the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) announced the country was to be greylisted.

And yet. One decade later. Taking its lead from Mauritius’s strategy to remove itself from the FATF’s pages, South Africa made a commendable effort in just over two years. For the first time in years, the finance minister produced a praiseworthy mid-term budget – and was rewarded with a ratings upgrade.

Against a landscape of despair, whether you acknowledge it or not – call it the great unknown of fragile, moving systems – whether it makes you despise the African National Congress more or less, whether you’re lost in that litany of pursuant crises and completely desensitized and simply cannot adjust to the news, something has happened. This is where you are. These things have actually happened.