PUBLISHERS VIEW

subscriber | 18 February, 2010

South Africa gains in confidence under the affable Mr. Zuma

We all long back to the time when the worlds only living political icon, Nelson Mandela - who wasn't entirely happy about being put up on a square before he had even passed away - reigned.

Mandela was obviously an impossible act to follow so Thabo Mbeki failed. His main drawback was his centralism and inability to communicate with his constituencies.

On that score South Africa’s new president Jacob Zuma is a huge improvement. He's very good at playing for the crowds, even get married a couple of times more often than what is politically correct. Majority voters in South Africa, 78 percent black, have no problem with that. The Zulu electorate would say that it is their culture. The other constituencies would say, well "he is a Zulu so he can".

Zuma's performace so far hasn't been bad though - it is fair to say that he mostly has done a better job than he gets credit for.

That is largely what we hear from foreign business people in
the country.

The perception was that Zuma would drag the country down
further, as his character was in doubt and that it would be pay back
time for all his backers, mainly from the left in the ruling ANC party,
as well as trade unions and an army of “walking wounded”, the many
enemies of former President Thabo Mbeki.

So far so good though. Jacob Zuma started of by creating a well balanced,
experienced cabinet. Predictably Thabo Mbeki’s most prominent
supporters disappeared.

But there was enough continuity to make it look
good. Trevor Manuel is still onboard, albeit as a sort of grey eminence
at the newly created Planning Commission. And the appointment of Pravin
Gordan, the former head of South African Revenue Services, was met with
satisfaction among local and foreign business. Mr. Gordan is hard
working, level headed and does not belong to any particular camp. With
substantial assistance from Swedish tax consultants, financed by Sida,
Gordan has quadrupled the country’s tax base and helped Trevor Manuel
to create the first budget ever with a surplus two years ago.

Then it was the appointment of Gill Marcus as the new head of the South
African Reserve bank. It was a foregone conclusion that Tito Mboweni,
closely linked to the Mbeki camp, would not be reappointed.

A thorough clean up of the country’s public broadcaster SABC is also
taking place. The old Mbekite board is about to be replaced. There is
plenty of work to do there, after SABC reported a ZAR 900 million loss
largely due to mismanagement, corrupt practices, and nepotism and
his-masters-voice tendencies. There is even talk about attempts to
re-hire Zwelakhe Sisulu, SABC's first black CEO and the son of deceased
Walter Sisulu.

Jacob Zuma has also proven to be more affable and capable of dealing
with situations of crisis and distrust by getting out there, be it to
last winters freezing cold townships or to calm striking trade
unionists. Mbeki wasn’t able to talk to “the people”.

Zuma needs to show he is nobody's puppet and will rule the country in a level headed way.

So to many’s surprise Mr. Zuma has brought a level of stability and
predictability to the country, in the midst of an otherwise tough
economic situation. The South African currency has strengthened over
the past six months, the inflation and interest rates are coming down –
and stocks as well as property prices have bounced back.