How Juju stole Zuma’s thunder

The first time Jacob Zuma danced publicly with ANC Youth League (ANCYL) leader Julius Malema was in October 2009, soon after he became president of South Africa. Zuma was attending a ceremony to hand over a church that had been built with Malema’s help in Seshego, Limpopo – during which the youth leader, who had helped to get Zuma into office, was inappropriately introduced as “president” Malema on the same platform as Zuma, with no distinction made between their relative importance.

Eyebrows were also raised on that occasion because, instead of rebuking Malema for his outspoken criticism of the appointment of “minorities” to key positions in the country’s economic ministries, as many had hoped, Zuma went out of his way to praise the young hothead as “a leader in the making”.

Malema had ensured his place by the president’s side a year earlier when he said he would “kill” for Msholozi if the criminal charges hanging over Zuma were not dropped. In those days, the ANC’s politically vulnerable head leant on crucial support from the youth league. But things have changed since their first good-natured jig in Seshego.

Zuma’s dig at Malema’s expanding girth on that occasion – “He is a bit bigger now and he can intimidate bigger people” – sounds almost prophetic now.

What a contrast you see between their first dance and the most recent of their public duets, staged a few weeks ago at the mass rally that concluded the ANC’s local government election campaign. Their latest song and dance gig was far from friendly; it clearly symbolised the hostility simmering between two leaders who have been dubbed big president and small president within the ANC.

Recorded by an international news cameraman, the dance occurred against Zuma’s will – a remarkable event in itself.

Stranger still is that it was not spontaneous but carefully choreographed by Malema, as his every step seems to be.

Here’s how it happened.

A crowd of 100 000 was gathering at FNB Stadium in Soweto to hear big president speak. Small president arrived well before Zuma’s entourage and made his way unobtrusively on to the stage. With technicians busy around him, Malema began to pace the podium.

He walked up and down, paused, turned around, a thoughtful expression on his face, the fingers of one hand pressed to his mouth. He appeared to be looking closely at the approach to the platform, striding back and forth as if measuring. Then he stepped down and disappeared into the crowd.

Zuma arrived amid the usual fanfare. Droning on about the ANC’s virtues, he eventually stopped talking and began to dance to his signature song, Awulethe umshini wami.

Small president was, meanwhile, threading his way through the crowd. Walking nonchalantly up the steps, he unexpectedly appeared alongside big president, swaying to the tune. The crowd roared. Zuma, who was momentarily facing the other way, turned and suddenly saw Malema dancing next to him. Umshini is unquestionably big president’s special song and he looked stunned, missing a beat. Then he carried on – with noticeably less enthusiasm.

The two did not even glance at each other. Both raised their fists when big president stopped singing and shouted the ANC’s traditional battle cry, amaaaandla.

Small president echoed awethu along with the crowd. Then he strolled away.

What, I wonder after watching the footage several times, is the meaning of such an unusual ambush?

Are we already on the campaign trail for 2012? Remembering how cruelly the party dispensed with Thabo Mbeki, you wonder whether Malema is a messenger of contempt sent by nameless enemies to unnerve Zuma before next year’s titanic leadership confrontation.

With ANC veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and others proclaiming Malema a future president of the ANC, is he, as senior Gauteng ANC member Dumisa Ntuli reckons, the kingmaker, deciding “who goes and who stays at the 2012 conference”?

There has been endless speculation about Malema’s baffling role in our politics. Does he say what supposedly conservative others in the ANC can’t or won’t articulate, thereby acting as a useful barometer of public opinion – which he has admitted doing for Zuma when he first sprang to prominence, or is he an anomaly?

Far from his hate speech trial damaging Malema’s credentials, small president made good use of the platform to challenge his reputation for unreasonableness and to emerge as a victim of Afrikaner persecution.

Many South Africans see Malema’s threats of nationalisation and his anti-white rhetoric as signs that Zimbabwe-like smash-and-grab politics lurk around the corner. His fearlessness gives him the power to denounce and frighten his foes.

Being outside the ANC yet within it, he remains his own man and can improvise – unlike Zuma, who is no longer free even to sing his own song solo.

But where, oh where, is the ANC’s leadership in all this?

l Heidi Holland is the author of several books, including the internationally-acclaimed Dinner With Mugabe.