CABINET RESHUFFLE
ANTHONY BUTLER: Zuma’s acolytes are celebrating his survival too soon
Compliance depends in part upon fear, a language Zuma’s followers seem to understand
President Jacob Zuma’s supporters have been rather smug since Wednesday’s national working committee media briefing. If today’s "anti-Zuma" marches flop — as they probably will — Zuma’s fans will become positively delirious. Like president Thabo Mbeki’s acolytes in the run-up to the ANC’s 2007 Polokwane conference, they are starting to think they cannot lose. The reality, however, is that Zuma’s political problems have not gone away. He is still languishing under a personal legal cloud. His "lame duck" clock is still running down; the bell will toll at the end of December, when he will no longer be ANC president. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s succession campaign is floundering — so much so Zuma ducked out of appointing her to a cabinet position. His most likely successors, ANC deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa and treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize, have now put on public record their unhappiness with the reshuffle. He has been deeply damaged by sacking his finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, a...
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