A president under siege

The 2015 #Fall movement was inspired by, of all things, a pile of excrement. Incensed by having to walk past the Cecil John Rhodes statue on his way to lectures every day, University of Cape Town student Chumani Maxwele threw faeces at the colonialist’s effigy.  

From that simple act of vandalism grew a powerful force that would define 2015. Fellow UCT students joined Maxeke and the #RhodesMustFall campaign was born. The UCT administration was eventually forced to pull down the statue and re-examine the values and culture of the institution.

Other statues of colonial and apartheid icons were also attacked around the country as part of a student-led campaign of “decolonising” SA.  

To some this campaign of attacking concrete representations of dead white men seemed rather absurd and pointless.

But the move ignited a wave of student activism, which would spawn the #FeesMustFall movement.

On the face of it this uprising was about unaffordable tertiary fees, but in reality it was a revolt against the Establishment, as represented by government and the corporate sector.

Out of this movement flowed the #ZumaMustFall campaign, fuelled by the president’s disastrous decision to fire the finance minister in early December. 

And so we ended 2015 on an activism high, with the #ZumaMustFall campaign gaining momentum across races and classes – even within the ANC.

This #Fall will define 2016.   

President Zuma will enter 2016 at his very weakest. Public disapproval of him is at an all-time high. His party is being torn apart by deep divisions, from its branches to its highest decision-making structures. ANC veterans are speaking out publicly against him. Senior ANC leaders are whispering loudly about what a liability he has become to the organisation.   

New year, old tricks

Zuma’s political year will begin in a deceptively positive manner when he delivers the ANC’s traditional 8 January anniversary statement.

The event in North West will be carefully stage-managed by provincial premier Supra Mahumapelo, his close ally.

As has become practice since Zuma was booed at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service, the masses who will board buses headed for Rustenburg will be carefully vetted at branch level and strictly policed by beady-eyed marshals at the stadiums.

We can expect wild applause from this audience, something that will be pleasing to the ears of the besieged Zuma.  

That is where the pleasantness of 2016 will end for him. Zuma’s next big public appearance, the opening of Parliament, will be a rough affair. The EEF has promised to block the State of the Nation Address, while civil society groups have threatened massive protests around Parliament to demand his exit.  

Just like in 2015, the heavy hand of security forces will come down hard on protestors inside and outside of Parliament, enabling Zuma to feign deafness and blindness to the noisy chaos around him as he plods through his prepared speech.    

Local elections

In his speech Zuma will likely announce the date on which he will have the next rendezvous with history – the local government elections.

Because of the precarious state of the republic, the 2016 local government elections will not be about waste collection, the delivery of basic services and the management of municipal finances. They will be about the direction of the country and an indirect referendum on Zuma and the ANC.    

While incumbency, the formidable election machinery and connectedness to communities will carry the ANC through in most municipalities, the focus will not be on how many localities it has won but on how much of the popular vote it has lost. With all bets being on a significant desertion by loyal voters, anti-Zuma sentiment will grow within the party.

Those who will have lost their municipal seats, and those who will interpret the trend as a threat to their provincial and national political careers, will turn on the individual who is to blame for the most of the party’s woes.  

New political formation

Zuma’s other big battle of 2016 will be in the courts, where the DA’s bid to have him face trial for fraud and corruption will enter the home stretch.

This running battle will reinforce the taint of corruption that surrounds him. As will the other matter that will be in the courts: the attempt by the EFF to force Zuma to abide by the Public Protector’s findings on Nkandla.

On the left of the spectrum will emerge a new Numsa-driven trade union federation and an allied political formation, which will take the ANC on in the working class. Like the other parties, these new forces will target Zuma as the ANC’s weak link, piling more pressure on the organisation to do something about its leader.

If 2016 is not the year that Zuma falls, it will be the year in which he effectively loses power and his fate gets determined by forces he cannot control. And that is as good as falling.

Mondli Makhanya is editor-at-large of City Press.

This article originally appeared in the 31 December 2015 edition of finweek. Buy and download the magazine here.