How Zuma broke his silence

02 April 2014 - 09:09 By S'Thembiso Msomi
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S'Thembiso Msomi
S'Thembiso Msomi
Image: The Times Group

For 11 frustrating days, the nation waited for its president to say something. He had been found, in a damning 447-page report by public protector Thuli Madonsela, to have unduly benefited from the R246-million security upgrades at his Nkandla residence.

But President Jacob Zuma simply refused to react publicly to an issue that had almost everyone talking.

Soon after the release of Madonsela's report, journalists followed him like flies everywhere he went.

He would talk about anything, from the government's achievements over the past 20 years to how the ANC is once again going to crush opposition parties at the polls on May 7, but no word on Madonsela's report.

A day after Madonsela's press conference on the report, a journalist from a broadcasting house known to be sympathetic to the government tried to have an impromptu interview with Zuma during his election campaign tour in Tlokwe, North West.

But ANC communicators stopped the journalist in his tracks, afraid the interview could spell trouble as none of them knew how Zuma would react.

At other public gatherings attended by the president, reports suggest that audiences were carefully selected to avoid potential embarrassment.

Everybody had spoken out - the outraged opposition, the defensive government and the ANC, religious leaders and other prominent personalities. But all of that was not enough.

The only thing that everybody wanted to hear was word from the man at the centre of it all.

As the days went by, it became increasingly clear the president would not break his silence - at least not before an important meeting of his party's national executive committee.

So it came to be that much of last week was spent speculating about what he would tell the committee about the saga, and what advice the party's highest decision-making leadership body would give him to deal with the saga.

But, as was confirmed by ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe on Monday, the past weekend's executive committee meeting did not dwell much on Nkandla - leaving everything to the state and Zuma to sort out.

Then Zuma went to Gugulethu township, Cape Town, on Sunday afternoon.

It was one of those usual election campaign days, during which the president walks around a neighbourhood, shakes hands, kisses babies and looks concerned as he listens to local residents' grievances about joblessness and poor delivery of services.

For a province that is run by the opposition Democratic Alliance and a township where the ANC is said to be facing a serious challenge from Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters, Zuma was well received.

By the time ANC organisers of the trip took him to the local Sky Lounge Restaurant for lunch, he felt perfectly at home.

A handful of elderly locals, who had been hand-picked by ANC leaders in the area for lunch with the president, could not believe their luck. And they told him so.

According to those present at the restaurant, the elders took turns expressing their surprise at sharing the table with "a big and important man" they only see on television.

Probably overwhelmed by the love he was receiving from this crowd, and certainly relaxed as most of the media who had kept a close eye on him throughout the day of campaigning had left, Zuma finally let his guard down.

He was no "big man" but an ordinary person who hailed from Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma said.

With those words began Zuma's startling opening up on the matter.

No political communication strategy; no advice from his spin doctors on the issue - just Zuma's raw thoughts on the matter.

Those close to the Union Buildings say even his office was taken by surprise as there had never been a discussion on how the president's communication around the matter would be handled. A spin doctor's nightmare, our president is.

Maybe the public is better off hearing Zuma's reaction directly from the horse' s mouth, unrehearsed.

What is clear from Zuma's remarks made in Gugulethu is that our president is angry and feels offended by suggestions that he has "misused government's money".

"I've done nothing wrong. Even if they look underneath a tree or a rock, they won't find anything against me. All I did was to build my father's house and they are chasing after me for that," Zuma protested.

But what was most tragic about the statements made on Sunday was that not once did he show an appreciation of the legitimacy of the anger felt by millions of South Africans about the obscene amount of money spent by the state on a private home.

When he finally accounts to parliament about Madonsela's findings, Zuma had better give us a better explanation.

 

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