Zuma king on ANC’s chessboard of pawns
Internal revolt will not be sufficient to unseat the president as not enough pressure has been put on MPs
Many South Africans believe President Jacob Zuma is a fool. They mock his hesitant English. They scorn his irrational pronouncements and laugh at his lack of ability in simple arithmetic. His shortcomings are plain to see and difficult to hide. However, he is no fool when leveraging and executing power — he pours scorn on those who oppose him. He has shown himself to be a grandmaster on the chessboard of the ANC’s internal politics. His ability to read and deploy the ANC organogram of power is unparallelled. He knows which position holds what amount of power. After he puts his people in position, he leverages them — and the power they enjoy — to do his bidding. He has done so in the ANC and the government. His biggest challenge is that he has often put the wrong person in the right position to do his bidding and help him control power and influence. Asking pawns to do the work of knights and bishops has been his downfall, as Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini has illustra...
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