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Zuma in Zugzwang?

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    Zuma in Zugzwang?

    Interesting developments in South Africa, where the controversial tenure of Jacob Zuma may be nearing a close. After sacking the Finance Minister last month, the ANC's influential allies in both the South African Communist Party and the trade union COSATU are both now calling for the President to step down. Presumably an ANC replacement could remain in tenure until the scheduled elections in 2019, but both the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters will be emboldened by events.

    #2
    Cyril Ramaphosa has won the ANC Presidency by 179 votes over Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini-Zuma (Jacob's wife).

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      #3
      Our share price rocketed at the news.

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        #4
        Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
        Cyril Ramaphosa has won the ANC Presidency by 179 votes over Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini-Zuma (Jacob's wife).
        Ex-wife, to be fair to her.

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          #5
          Indeed.

          Not one of his four current wives.

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            #6
            The corrupt fucker backed her, and her entire support among the ANC leadership comprised the pigs at the kleptomanic trough. Thank goodness she lost.

            Cyril Ramaphosa is a wise chap. He's the one who led the negotiations for a peaceful transition back in the miracle days. And he's richer than God, so won't have to act like a petty thief like the current bastard in charge (if the ANC gets re-elected in 2019. No assurance of that).

            The bad news is that three of the top six office-bearing positions are occupied by really bad news people. David Mabuza as vice-president is more than just ethically compromised.

            Ace Magashule as secretary-general is a disaster for the ANC. Highly corrupt, highly factional, and hostile to the media. His province, the Free State, was implicated in vote-rigging and therefore disqualified from voting. Now that guy is in charge of running the ANC. He'll tear it apart.

            His deputy, Jessie Duarte, has long sold her soul to the devil. Once an admirable leader of the struggle, she is now a defender of the indefensible and a person whose relationship with the truth often is adversarial.

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              #7
              This analysis speaks for me.

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                #8
                If the ANC would have split, what would have been the cleavage(s) on which the split would have occurred, G-Man?

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                  #9
                  <sound of head exploding>

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by NHH View Post
                    If the ANC would have split, what would have been the cleavage(s) on which the split would have occurred, G-Man?
                    Had Ramaphosa lost, there probably would have been a powerful faction of anti-Zuma democrats breaking away. I still expect that the Communist Party will break away from their alliance with the ANC. They are already talking about standing individually at the next election. And I expect 2019 to be very tight, with chances of the ANC dipping below 50% not outlandish.

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                      #11
                      How strong are the communist party within both the ANC and Cosatu these days?

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                        #12
                        Cosatu is totally divided, and rival unions are capitalising on that. The SACP has influence in some unions and none in others. The SACP has broken with Zuma -- after heaving him into the ANC presidency in 2008. The election of the Top 6 reflects that; only Gwede Mantashe is an SACP guy, and he's been promoted into insignificance.

                        It'll be interesting to see what electoral support they'd have. My guess would be 2-3%. But that's 2-3% the ANC might be missing for a majority in 2019.

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by G-Man View Post
                          Cosatu is totally divided, and rival unions are capitalising on that. The SACP has influence in some unions and none in others. The SACP has broken with Zuma -- after heaving him into the ANC presidency in 2008. The election of the Top 6 reflects that; only Gwede Mantashe is an SACP guy, and he's been promoted into insignificance.

                          It'll be interesting to see what electoral support they'd have. My guess would be 2-3%. But that's 2-3% the ANC might be missing for a majority in 2019.
                          If that low, then they evidently have no leaders of a Slovo stature nowadays?

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                            #14
                            They don't have a leader of the statue of a miniature Slovo statue. But the red flag still has some purchase.

                            Veteran journalist Max du Preez, who is always worth reading, thinks Ramaphosa will start to jangle his balls of steel now; I hope his optimism isn't misplaced. It is, of course, good to remember that Ramaphosa is a brilliant strategist. It was a thing of beauty to behold how he totally outmanouevred the National Party in the negotiations for a democratic dispensation. The Nats wanted minority rights for whites, a federal system and all kinds of deals. They got a second deputy president who resigned after a while because he realised that he was there as window dressing.

                            I had forgotten that Ramaphosa had been a key player in the Northern Ireland peace process.

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                              #15
                              Zuma will most likely cease to be president tomorrow, either by resignation or by a motion of no confidence in which his own party will vote against him. The ANC has already announced that the new president -- Ramaphosa -- will be sworn in on Friday. The balls of steel I was talking about in the above post.

                              The ouster of Zuma has been coming on for a couple of weeks now. Ramaphosa did all he could do enable the corrupt fucker to exit with dignity. Zuma refused to resign, saying he still had state obligations to finalise. He also demanded immunity from prosecution, which Ramaphosa refused to give, and legally couldn't. So Zuma dug in, and the ANC leadership -- including his loyalists who know wind-directions -- resolved on Tuesday to "recall" him from his deployment in the presidency, demanding his resignation. Zuma defied the recall and went on TV today, saying he did nothing wrong and making thinly-veiled threats about violence should he be toppled.

                              While all thus was going on, the houses of the Gupta family -- Zumas's client in the plunder of South Africa -- were raided. One of them was reportedly arrested.

                              If Zuma doesn't resign by tomorrow, the motion of no confidence will be, I think, his ninth and final one. The ANC speaker of parliament (an erstwhile Zuma loyalist) has denied a secret vote, so only the most self-sabotaging of idiots will vote against the motion. It will be a humiliation: not only would his own party be voting him out, but the opposition would be exercising their prerogative to give the political corpse of Zuma a good kicking, especially his one-time protegé and then nemesis, the populist Julius Malema.

                              So first Mugabe, then Zuma. Netanyahu might go to jail. What hope Trump?

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                                #16
                                And he has resigned. A nation exhales.

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                                  #17
                                  Oh, thank goodness. Cheers for the updates here G-Man. Let's see what Cyril can do now.

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                                    #18
                                    A question for Gman, how's the new president getting on and what's the story with the Julius Malema guy?

                                    I am really liking the cut of his jib although he seems to get a lukewarm response in the international media which worries me.

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by Tactical Genius View Post
                                      A question for Gman, how's the new president getting on and what's the story with the Julius Malema guy?

                                      I am really liking the cut of his jib although he seems to get a lukewarm response in the international media which worries me.
                                      The whole rhetoric about land repossession does have disturbing echoes of Zimbabwe, it must be admitted.

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                                        #20
                                        Originally posted by Diable Rouge View Post
                                        The whole rhetoric about land repossession does have disturbing echoes of Zimbabwe, it must be admitted.
                                        How is it disturbing, do you think they should take back the land without compensation?

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                                          #21
                                          I wonder how our war of independence/civil war period would have gone if they hadn't sorted out the land issue in the last 30 years of the nineteenth century? If we were still tenant farmers in 1919, It would have been a radically different affair, and a considerably less conservative revolution.

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                                            #22
                                            As far as I can tell, there aren't any land repossessions yet. It's not even clear if it will ever happen. No matter how much the likes of Trump want to create the narrative of some kind of white genocide, it's complete bollocks.

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                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by Tactical Genius View Post
                                              How is it disturbing, do you think they should take back the land without compensation?
                                              No, but that's what Malema had been suggesting.

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                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by Diable Rouge View Post
                                                No, but that's what Malema had been suggesting.
                                                Why should the White farmers be compensated, I am really interested in your response here?

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                                                  #25
                                                  To make an analogy with Ulster, many of the whites in South Africa have been living in the country for centuries, so can be said to be as native at this stage as the various black ethnic groups. I'm fully in favour of land redistribution, but buy-in from all races is essential if the policy is to be an economic and societal success.

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