Like all South Africans, I woke up this morning to great lamentations and gnashings of teeth about president Zuma’s decision to, um, redeploy minister of finance Nhlanhla Nene. All commentators agreed it was a shockingly bad move. Most speculated it had something to do with Mr. Nene’s determination to control spending and block projects that seem dear to the presidential heart – the purchase of SAA Airbuses through mysterious third parties, for instance, or the fiscally suicidal Russian nuclear power deal.
But as of this writing, nobody is paying much attention to the speech Zuma made immediately after his fateful move against Nene. This is a pity, because it was an extraordinary address, delivered without benefit of the written material over which Zuma so frequently stumbles. This time, he looked his audience in the eye and spoke off the cuff for fifty-odd minutes. And what he said was….well. In his own estimation, it was “most historic.” One got the impression that the president felt he had crossed a threshold, and needed to explain himself...
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/zuma-going-the-full-mugabe
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