Turning Juju into new Zuma

ANC members love a victim. Be in trouble with the law or subjected to media scrutiny for alleged wrongdoing and you are most likely to be a "hero" in the eyes of many of your comrades.

Recent ruling party history attests to this.

In the post-apartheid era, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has been at her most popular within ANC ranks when allegations of wrongdoing have been levelled against her.

ANC members continued to rally behind Tony Yengeni, even as he handed himself over to prison authorities to begin his sentence after being convicted on arms deal corruption-related charges.

It must be the long and bitter history of the struggle against apartheid that makes party loyalists spring to the defence of any of their own said to be on the wrong side of the law.

Perhaps more than anyone else in the ANC leadership, President Jacob Zuma is well aware of this phenomenon. After all, it was his axing as the country's deputy president - amid allegations of fraud and corruption levelled against him - that gave impetus to his bid for the presidency.

Though to most outside observers it seemed perfectly reasonable for the then president, Thabo Mbeki, to fire his deputy, given the damning evidence and findings in the corruption case of Zuma's financial adviser Schabir Shaik, to most ANC members Zuma was being victimised for political reasons.

His supporters would go on to accuse Mbeki of using state agencies, especially the now defunct Scorpions, and the media to try to stop Zuma from running for the ANC presidency at the end of 2007.

Whether or not this was true is not the subject of this column. What matters is that this narrative found resonance with the vast majority of the ANC's rank and file - and hence helped bring Zuma to power.

As Luthuli House prepares for the appearance of ANC Youth League president Julius Malema before the ruling party's national disciplinary committee on Tuesday next week, there is a real danger of Malema being turned into a new Zuma.

Clearly, Zuma and other ANC top officials had little option but to charge Malema and league spokesman Floyd Shivambu for their reckless statements pledging to help remove Botswana's "puppet regime" from power.

Failure to do so would not only have reinforced the view that Zuma - as both head of state and ANC president - is indecisive, it would have lost him the respect of other Southern African heads of state.

Though his regional peers continue to hold Zuma in high esteem, talk in diplomatic circles is that a number of governments are beginning to wonder if Malema, and not Zuma, is in charge.

Moreover, if he is to avoid a potentially chaotic succession battle at the ANC's next national conference - which will be held during its centenary next year - Zuma knows he has to nip the Malema threat in the bud right now.

About 30 heads of state from around the world are expected to attend the national conference in December next year as part of the celebrations of the ANC turning 100. Luthuli House is anxious that the conference, which will be held in Mangaung, Free State, should not degenerate into the kind of chaos experienced at the last conference, in Polokwane.

But unless the disciplinary process against Malema and Shivambu is properly managed, it has the potential to blow up in Zuma's face and plunge the ruling party into a bloody power struggle that would make Polokwane seem like a Sunday school picnic.

The signs are already there. According to a report in this newspaper on Monday, the league's national executive committee has decided to bus thousands of Malema supporters to Luthuli House on Tuesday and Wednesday as a show of support for their president and Shivambu.

There have been different reactions from ANC leaders to this threat, with some accusing the league of plotting "a mutiny". ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe dismisses it as wishful thinking on the part of the Young Lions.

As we saw during the recent Malema appearance before the Equality Court to defend his continued singing of a militant struggle song, he can easily turn such an occasion into a political campaign platform.

If the turnout is great, this could mark the beginning of an open campaign by the league to prevent Zuma being re-elected next year.

Zuma used the same strategy during his numerous court appearances ahead of Polokwane to garner support.

Can Malema beat Zuma at his own game?

Next Tuesday might provide us with an answer.