President Jacob Zuma: not worth his word

You cannot trust president Jacob Zuma or take him at his word. He has proved himself to be self-contradictory. And how can we trust him when he says he will not change because he is president. I think already he has changed his tune on running for one term when he said that it will be up to the ANC to decide if can serve as president for a second term.

Before he was elected he made a pledge to serve only one term. He did not say the ANC will decide. When Zuma does not what to take responsibility for thinking, something he should have mastered by now as president, he always refers to the alliance and the ANC.

Gwede Matashe, the secretary-general of the ANC and Julius Malema, ANCYL president, should stop acting in an immature way by claiming that Cosatu has no right to say Zuma must continue for a second term. Do they suffer from political amnesia? Have they forgotten that Cosatu and the SACP were vocal in their support for Zuma before the Polokwane conference? Maybe both Mantashe and Malema wanted to be the first to announce the proposal for Zuma to run for two terms so they are angry Zwelinzima Vavi of Cosatu overtook them and is now busking in the political limelight.

Mantashe has said that it is up to the ANC branches to decide if Zuma will run for two terms or not. But Zuma must start to be a man of integrity, own up to his words and say that he is not available to run for a second term. We might start to take him seriously and believe some of the things he says. But if he dilly dallies and hides behind the ANC, then what he said at his party in Nkandla over the weekend that being in office won’t change him will go down in history as nothing but empty words.

If Jacob Zuma does not become a firm leader and an independent thinker most of us will sadly remember him for being a political chameleon who found the charming and glittering trappings of political office irresistible.