Understanding the ‘Zuma Tsunami’

Abstract

Jacob Zuma's defeat of Thabo Mbeki's bid to serve a third term as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) at the party's 52nd National Conference in Polokwane in December 2007 provoked a torrent of analysis. In large part, this was because Zuma himself was a highly controversial and contradictory figure. On the one hand, the ANC's new president was at the time having to fight against myriad charges of corruption through the courts; on the other, although highly patriarchal and conservative, he had earned the backing of the political left within the Tripartite Alliance and, apparently, the enthusiastic support of many among the poor. This article identifies eight ways in which the ‘Zuma tsunami’ was represented in the public discourse in South Africa, identifying their sources, motivations, limitations and overlaps, and concludes that the confusion around the issue of ‘what Zuma means’ represents a moment of extreme political fluidity within the ANC.