Zuma legacy a shameful one
MOST people, with the benefit of hindsight, would acknowledge that they might have changed the way they conducted their lives in at least a few respects.
But not President Jacob Zuma. He said in a recent interview with the national broadcaster that he would have done nothing different during his tenure as president.
He said he had conducted himself very carefully and could not think of single mess he had made or any one thing he would change in the way he had run the country.
But Zuma knows he is facing an ignominious end and, in the last months of his tenure, is seeking some way to redeem his legacy. The eternal populist’s reckless announcement of a free higher education was one of them. After all, what better way to be remembered than the leader who ushered in such a highly desired outcome.
How this is achieved will be someone else’s problem. Already, as illustrated by the article on our decaying prisons, the money to staunch the haemorrhaging by higher education institutions caused by zero fee increases last year, has had to come from somewhere. Money has been redirected from several departments including correctional services – meaning there is less available to maintain prison infrastructure, with the inevitable result that prisons are becoming increasingly porous.
But Zuma doesn’t care about consequences. He is now seeking a “dignified” exit and a Mandela-like legacy.
It is too late. The legacy he has earned is a dismal one and no amount of scrambling will change that. His legacy is informed by phrases that daily ring in our ears and inform our headlines. Nkandla, Marikana, the Guptas, state capture, arms deal, nuclear deal, and corruption, He will be remembered as a man who faced – and beat – a rape charge, and one who has used his power to dodge hundreds of criminal charges involving corruption, fraud and racketeering for 12 years and counting.
He will be remembered for undermining and hijacking our precious independent institutions such as that of public protector and national prosecuting authority, for presiding over the capture, looting and collapse of our vital state-owned enterprises such as Eskom, SAA, Transnet, Prasa and Denel.
His tenure will invoke memories of the crooked and unaffordable nuclear deal, failed land reform, for the repeated downgrading of our credit rating all the way down to junk status.
We will remember his many court cases, most of which ended in ignominy for the president. He was found by the courts to have breached his oath of office, and to have failed to uphold the Constitution. He has been described as reckless, grossly remiss, unreasonable and too conflicted to fulfil his constitutional duties. He has faced more motions on no confidence in parliament than any other president. He has blighted the reputation of a once venerable liberation party, undermined our democracy and broken our economy. This is his legacy and this is how he will be remembered. Destroying higher education with reckless promises that cannot be fulfilled will just be another nail in his reputational coffin.