Around the point that the writer adjudges that enough ground has been covered for Michael Dingake to make a definite pronouncement on whether President Jacob Zuma should resign, is when it becomes evident that such determination is premature.
Earlier Dingake had stated that if he were Zuma he would “call it quits”, an assertion whose most basic meaning seems to be that the speaker thinks that the South Africa president is in the wrong and should resign. However, the speaker doesn’t accept the construct that there is a difference between what he would do if he were Zuma and what he thinks Zuma should do. Then he hastens to call into question the objectivity of all the former this-and-that African National Congress stalwarts who have called for Zuma’s resignation: former ANC Treasurer General and Mpumalanga’s first Premier, Matthew Phosa; former Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel; former Deputy Defence Minister, Ronnie Kasrils; former Director General in the Presidency under Thabo Mbeki, Reverend Frank Chikane; former General Secretary of theCongress of South African Trade Unions, Zwelinzima Vavi. With the exception of the latter, he links all the men to the one Zuma ousted from the state and ANC presidency ÔÇô Mbeki. With precise regard to Vavi, Dingake says that the trade unionist has a problem with the ANC in general and with Zuma in particular. The odd man out in the Zuma-must-go camp is Ahmed Kathrada whom Dingake describes as “sincere and objective”.
“He would have thought very carefully about his position and wouldn’t like to be associated with any faction. I know him very intimately,” he says.
But why is Dingake, founding president of the Botswana Congress Party, deputy Botswana National Front president under Dr. Kenneth Koma and first Gaborone Central MP, talking South African politics when there is a lot to say about Botswana? The answer is that Dingake is an ANC stalwart who spent 15 years on Robben Island. Once when Survival International (SI) felt the need to drop names of who is in its camp, it has stated that “Michael Dingake, a veteran ANC activist from Botswana who was imprisoned on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela, has issued a scathing critique of his government’s persecution of the Bushmen.” Zuma and Kathrada were also at Robben Island with Dingake. SI is a London-based pressure group that has been fighting a ceaseless war with the Botswana government over the right of the Gwi and Gana communities to live freely in the Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve.
According to South Africa History Online, Dingake joined the African National Congress (ANC) in 1952 during the Defiance Campaign and went on to serve in various capacities in different structures of the ANC. In December 1965, he was serving as the external contact with the ANC underground machinery in Johannesburg, organising infiltration routes for umkhonto weSizwe (MK) guerrillas from Zambia through Botswana. He was arrested, tried and sentenced to 15 years which he served on Robben Island. At the time of Dingake’s arrest, Botswana was still called the Bechuanaland Protectorate and its people considered British subjects. Thus on April 28, 1966, David Steel, MP for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, asked a question in the House of Commons about Dingake’s case. Steel asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies “what information has been received from the Bechuanaland Police about Mr. Michael Dingake, a British citizen from Bechuanaland; and if he will make a statement.” The Secretary, Frederick Lee, confirmed that Dingake had indeed been arrested and that two months earlier when it made enquiries about Dingake’s whereabouts, the British Embassy in Cape Town learnt that the Motswana man had been taken to court in Johannesburg on April 4 and later transferred to Pretoria for trial in the Supreme Court on April 26. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs received a report of the initial stages of the trial at which a British Vice-Consul was present.
Upon his release on May 1981, Dingake was repatriated to what was now independent Botswana. However, he has never severed ties with South Africa and the ANC. He clearly follows political developments in South Africa well enough to have internalised the language peculiar to that country. Not too long ago, South Africa’s Constitutional Court (“ConCourt”) handed down judgment in a matter in which 11 judges, including the Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, had to consider whether Zuma acted properly with regard to the recommendations of the Public Prosecutor, Thuli Madonsela. In his summary of the judgement, Dingake refers to the “ConCourt” and “Chapter 9 institutions.” The latter refers to a group of organisations established in terms of Chapter 9 of the South African Constitution to guard democracy.
The ConCourt matter, which relates entirely to the refurbishment of a private residence in a once-obscure corner of KwaZulu/Natal called Nkandla, is what has put Zuma in a snake pit. The refurbishment was to be confined to security upgrades but in the process of such refurbishment, non-security features (swimming pool, cattle kraal, amphitheatre and chicken run) were added. Following an investigation, Madonsela said Zuma must reimburse the government for money spent on the latter features but she was rebuffed by parliament. That led to the opposition Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters taking the matter to Constitutional Court which ruled against Zuma, notably stating in its judgement that he had failed to uphold his oath of office.
That the opposition was going to capitalize on that judgement is a given but some from the ANC camp also say that Zuma should resign. At least from following South African and international media, Zuma appears to be losing his grip on power. Conversely, Dingake’s analysis is that the president has the support that matters the most. He illustrates that point by asserting that while the South African Council of Churches (which is mainly made up of mainline protestant churches) has called for Zuma’s resignation, African traditional religion churches ÔÇô like the Zion Christian Church, have come out in his support. The significance of this point is that the latter, which have black membership, have numerical strength which is the most critical element of whether Zuma goes or stays.
Alongside Nkandla, Zuma has been controversially associated with the Gupta family which runs a business empire that one of his sons was a director in until three weeks ago. The Gupta brothers, who reportedly bankrolled Zuma at the time that he was fighting criminal charges in court, are said to be so powerful that they appoint South African cabinet ministers. Having determined this alliance to be a threat to the rainbow nation and in deploying the slogan of the times, EFF is advocating that “Zupta” (a portmanteau of “Zuma” and “Gupta”) must fall. In assessing this issue, Dingake begins by pointing out that friendship between people is “a given” but hastens to add that the parameters of such friendship have to be well defined in order that one doesn’t compromise himself. While he says that the allegation that the Guptas appoint ministers “shocked” him, Dingake is clear about the fact that he treats such detail as a mere allegation.
“But did Zuma really do it? I don’t think he is being controlled by the Guptas; I think he listened to them on some matters. I am still battling with the allegation that the Guptas are controlling him. One never knows but I can’t imagine the Guptas dictating to him what to do. Maybe one day the truth will come out,” Dingake says.
Dingake and Zuma first met in 1963 when the latter was part of a group of boys bound to Tanzania for military training. Dingake’s first impression of Zuma who was between 19 and 20 years was that he was a “very loyal and sincere fellow.” That impression would be reinforced three years when the two men met again at Robben Island. Following the court pronouncement on the Nkandla matter, the ANC’s top six officials held an emergency meeting and coming out expressed support for Zuma. Dingake says that if the top six had asked Zuma to step down, he would have done so willingly because he is “a loyal and committed member of the ANC.”
His impression of the Guptas is that they are just like all other businesspeople who use their resources to make the political system work for them. And indeed some of the Zupta analysis by South Africans themselves is that other rich South Africans (like the Oppenheimers and Ruperts) have used their wealth to bend political power to their will. To Dingake’s knowledge, the Guptas have financed both the ANC and the DA.
“That’s what businesspeople all over the world do,” says Dingake adding though that there is no evidence that Zuma personally benefitted from the Gupta largesse.
At least in this region, the Zupta saga has popularised a new term to political lexicon – state capture, which the World Bank defines as “a type of systemic political corruption in which private interests significantly influence a state’s decision-making processes to their own advantage through unobvious channels, that may not be illegal.” Dingake says that the use of such term is “nonsense” because Zuma is not the state whereupon the writer suggests a different theory ÔÇô party capture. The theory is that Zuma has captured the ANC and so rather than capture the party, the Guptas merely had to capture Zuma who has captured the ANC.
“That is also not possible,” says Dingake before launching into an explanation of how the tripartite alliance between the ANC, COSATU and the South African Communist Party works.
The gist of his explanation is that the cross-membership makes it impossible to capture any one component of that alliance. Circling back to the point he made earlier about the deep-pocketed buying political influence, Dingake explicates the concept of capture in a broader sense. According to him, the African Union and the Southern African Development Community have themselves been “captured” because they rely on western donors whose assistance comes with strings attached.
