GARETH VAN ONSELEN: How Zuma has destroyed ANC collective leadership
There are grounds now to compare SA with Zimbabwe, and that a powerful contributing factor is Jacob Zuma and the failure of the ANC’s much-vaunted collective leadership
The ANC in general and Jacob Zuma in particular have always boasted about internal party discipline and the wisdom of collective leadership. It is the difference between the ANC and other liberation movements, they claim. The thin green, yellow and black line. In May 2008, Zuma said of the meltdown across our northern border: "The ANC and SA cannot go the Zimbabwean way … [although I] cannot sit here and judge my colleagues in Zanu (PF), the ANC has a different culture. The ANC believes in collective leadership. "There will be no Zanufication here," he declared. But the president’s decision to reshuffle his Cabinet and, in doing so, fire the finance minister and his deputy, has initiated something of a mini financial crisis; one of many within a far bigger and long-lasting economic emergency.As a result, ratings agency S&P Global Ratings has downgraded SA’s credit rating to "junk" status (a clumsy term for a profound problem) and Moody’s put SA on review for a downgrade. Fitch has y...
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