How Zuma thrives on the ANC chaos

Who profits from the chaos in the ANC? Zuptas are the chief beneficiaries. That’s why Jacob Zuma still giggles.

President Jacob Zuma addresses supporters, 4 June 2016, at the FNB Stadium in Nasrec, Johannesburg for the ANC Gauteng Manifesto Launch. Picture: Alaister Russell

While radio stations crack jokes about the chair-throwing during the party’s Eastern Cape conference, the underlying intent has profound implications for South Africa’s future.

Here’s the Zupta plan. Ensure enough disruption to postpone the ANC national conference that is due in December. That’s where a new leader is supposed to be elected.

However, if the conference is delayed, Zuma stays on as party president. And a looter can continua. Preventing the humiliation of Zuma’s preferred candidate, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (NDZ), is a side issue.

The Zuptas know time is running out, so they want to steal for as long as possible. The urgency of recent disruptions is fuelled by the realisation that NDZ will not win.

Her loser status has been clear since the party’s policy conference in June. Even the entrenched ANC habit of buying votes of branch delegates (who have voting rights at the conference) looks set to fail.

Apparently the rate is R50 000 per vote, up from R20 000, according to Anton Harber’s informant. To “buy” the election would cost about R500 million.

And when you are regarded as untouchable by banks and auditors, that’s a lot of money to launder in a hurry.

So the Zuptas are under pressure. Zuma knows that, without NDZ there to protect him, he will lose not only his freedom to plunder. He could also face the prosecution he has been avoiding for more than a decade.

A successor who is not “captured” will remove the shield Zuma has created for himself in the security cluster. Video clips of chair-throwing distract us from what’s really going on.

Did you hear the armchair jokes about “standing room only”, “standing rules”, “standing ovations”, “members in good standing”, and so on? Don’t forget, there was blood on the floor. People were hurt in the Eastern Cape.

In KwaZulu-Natal, ANC rivalries have resulted in murders. While his party’s national executive committee (NEC) wants a political solution in KZN, Zuma ratchets up tensions through “lawfare”.

Contrary to an NEC decision, he wants further legal battles. Why? Because it is in his interests to keep stirring conflict in as many provinces as possible. The greater the turmoil, the better the chance of the ANC national conference being pushed to 2018, or even 2019.

Candidate Mathews Phosa reportedly says such postponement won’t suit Zuma because the leadership’s mandate will expire in December.

That viewpoint is merely something more to fight about, physically and in court.

Delays and conflicts will take many forms. With delegates’ votes for sale, there will be disputes, from branch level through to provincial conferences, right up to the national gathering, about credentials. About who qualifies to represent a branch.

There will be disputes about whether branches are properly constituted, and so on.

Zuma is a master at “Stalingrad” tactics of skirmishing on every possible front. That’s his style, along with divide-and-rule. There is method in the madness of flying chairs.

The ultimate survivor is at war.