The SACP explicitly denounced the fact that: “Increasingly our country is being ruled not from the Union Buildings, but from the Gupta family compound.”
And for the first time senior members of the ANC also came out publicly to voice their displeasure.
The second ranking ANC executive, Cyril Ramaphosa, also deputy president of the country, stuck his head above the parapet and said in a widely broadcast speech that he disagreed with Zuma’s dismissal of Pravin Gordhan as finance minister.
The third highest ranking ANC officer, Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe also said in public: “We can’t be happy because we think the finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, was a hard worker. The process made me a little jittery and uncomfortable, our views on that list counted for nought.”
In short, they were informed, not consulted.
Mantashe also commented: “We were given a list that was complete – in my view, the list has been developed somewhere else; was given to us to legitimise it.”
Everyone will infer he meant the Gupta brothers handed the list to Zuma.
The Guptas stand accused of having captured the South African government.
The fourth highest ranking ANC officer, Treasurer-General Zweli Mkhize also opposed Gordhan’s dismissal.
And yet another wave of stalwarts, including the Mandela and Kathrada foundations, plus the ANC’s Integrity Commission, joined the chorus.
Even after this groundswell of opposition, Zuma was still able to rally the majority of members of the ANC’s National Working Committee, which carries out decisions of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), behind him against efforts to have him removed.
The NEC is the party’s highest governing body between congresses.
Those who had spoken out against him were forced to retract and eat humble pie, while the integrity commission’s report was withdrawn.
What this shows is that Zuma loyalists still outnumber his opponents in national ANC structures.
Both the commentariat and the market assume that Zuma replaced Gordhan with Gigaba in the expectation that he would be more pliant to demands by the Guptas and Zuma over tenders.
Among Gordhan’s most recent steps was to centralise the issuing of tenders in the National Treasury.
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