ANTHONY BUTLER: Zuma’s centre cannot hold — and Dlamini-Zuma is a non-starter
Zuma’s lame-duck legacy is writ large, but the NEC may put him out of our misery sooner rather than later
Does President Jacob Zuma still really believe that Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma can become president of the ANC? At the ANC’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting this weekend, Zuma’s disastrous legacy, and his plans for the future, will be on the agenda. NEC members will be thinking hard about three questions. What will happen in December, at the ANC’s elective conference? What will be the result of the 2019 national and provincial elections? And why the hell is Zuma insisting that Dlamini-Zuma be his successor? The logic of a lame-duck presidency is that the incumbent’s power declines as the time he has left in office ebbs away. Add to this the fact that the latest Cabinet reshuffle was a national economic disaster, motivated by transparent self-interest.Zuma’s "premier league" backers are in disarray. KwaZulu-Natal is divided. The Cape provinces and Gauteng are firmly anti-Zuma. Union federation Cosatu and the South African Communist Party are in the reform camp. And the courts ...
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