Publication	Business Day
Date	2005-11-28
Reporter	Peter Bruce
Web Link	www.bday.co.za

Now that the Jacob Zuma show appears to be drawing to an abrupt though colourful end, the alarming thought occurs to me that, when he is no longer even remotely a possible successor to Thabo Mbeki as head of the ANC or of the republic, politics here will revert back to the numbing spectacle of Mbeki and his team ignoring all of us, pressing on with the Thousand Point Modernisation Plan (TPMP) that only he ever seems able to keep track of, and quiet lectures in the weekly presidential letter on how we are fulfilling our destiny.

The problem is that while this sort of relative tranquillity might be jolly useful when a president has years to rule, it is uncomfortable in a body politic on the very edge of constitutional (i.e. presidential) change.

For the question about succession won’t go away. I can exclusively repeat here that, for the moment, Mbeki’s candidate to succeed him as president is, ho-hum, the deputy president. There is no guarantee Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka will get the job but it seems Mbeki wants to give her a shot at it by putting her in charge of the TPMP.

Such will have been the technocratic fog of the Mbeki presidency that, where other leaders might have given a chosen successor a war to win or at least a victim to vanquish, Mlambo-Ngcuka’s challenge is almost uniquely prosaic in world politics. Of course, anyone touched on the shoulders by the Mbeki sword is going to have to hide it pretty well for a while. Zuma’s supporters, as I have often said, were Mbeki enemies long before they were Zuma supporters and they will be looking for a new champion.

Still, I am awed by the defeat Zuma appears to have brought upon himself and his camp. All Mbeki had to do, it seems, was wait. He must have the hide of an elephant *1.

FRANKLY, I am momentarily more interested in the future of last year’s international rugby player of the year, Schalk Burger, than I am in Jacob Zuma. I once bumped into Burger, whom I had always thought was about my size. He is, in fact, so large that I do not think he knew he was being bumped into by me. He looked like one of those Disney characters that dress up at theme parks for the kids ­ twice the size of an ordinary Schalk.

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*1 No, good sense dictates that an elephant to be devoured should be taken just a bite at a time - Idla 'Ndlovu.