PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
TONY LEON: Dlamini-Zuma’s course of strategic ambivalence leads to extinction
Two versions of her speech at Gibs, in text and orally, show little regard for dire state of public accounts
Presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s recent speech at a high citadel of capitalism — the Gordon Institute for Business Science — caused much controversy. In her actual remarks Dlamini-Zuma bemoaned the "dissonance" between the government and the private sector. But many noted the difference between her live comments and the dead hand of failed ideologies she resuscitated in the text handed out after her address. Business Day editorialised that in "straying off script … we are none the wiser" as to which of the "two Zumas" will emerge should she win the contest in December. Will it be the white monopoly is evil and only radical economic transformation can cure the ills of inequality and poverty version? Or will it be an approach that stresses collaboration, pragmatism and nonracial solidarity? Every political campaign, to some degree, practises "strategic ambivalence". But taken to extremes, it leads to incoherence and, over time, to extinction. The United Party, which domin...
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