President Zuma, who spent last week on a state visit to France, returned at the week-end to face some very serious problems – in fact problems that not only challenge his presidency and the possibility of a second term, but could have negative implications for our democracy.

Firstly there is the problem of the Chief of Police – General Bheki Cele. Already discredited through some ill-timed and silly public statements, and an inclination to clownishness, Cele was involved in the renting of a new, and apparently unnecessary, police headquarters in Pretoria. What became evident is that all the requirements for such a deal were ignored and the beneficiary – the owner of the building – is fortuitously a major ANC (African National Congress) funder. The matter was referred to the Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, who after examination described it as “unlawful” and similarly condemned Cele’s action.

With the Public Protector’s report off to Cabinet, before Cabinet could respond the police raided the Public Protector’s office with the intention of obtaining a particular document which had been used in evidence against the Police Chief. The raid, to everybody’s credit, has been described by also ANC members and members of the alliance as outrageous. Cele denies any prior knowledge of the police action, something sources within the police say is hard to believe. And, sensing blood, this week began with various associations representing police accusing Cele of inappropriately appointing friends and family to high positions within the police. The Minister of Police has taken an interest and it will be interesting to see how President Zuma manages this one – especially given that Cele has always been a close associate and was his appointee.

Secondly, the President needs to explain more clearly his relationship to the Gupta family. The Gupta’s are from India and relatively recent arrivals in South Africa. From all accounts they are enterprising people who very quickly established a fairly substantial business. The trouble is that a lot of this seems to have been done with members of the ANC elite and more specifically President Zuma’s family and friends. Demands for clarity and explanations are coming in fast and furious, and not just from the opposition but from leading members of the ANC. In fact, one of South Africa’s brightest political analysts in an article over the week-end described how Daniel arap Moi managed to successfully loot Kenya, and commented: “Could it be that, by the time Zuma finishes his second term, our country will be mortgaged completely to China and India? Or, could it be that Duduzane [Zuma’s son] will be like Gaddafi’s son, going to great lengths to defend the wealth of the family?”

Thirdly, and certainly the most serious matter the President faces, is the Jimmy Manyi affair. By way of background, and particularly for our many international readers, South Africa has nine provinces and the ANC governs all but one – namely the Western Cape. Part of the reason for this is that the Western Cape government, which is controlled by the Democratic Alliance (DA), is the best provincial government in South Africa and Cape Town is the best run city. But possibly more important is the province’s demographics. The Western Cape has a very large coloured population, and putting white South Africans and the much smaller Indian community on one side, the coloured community has the largest middle-class proportionately speaking of any other population group. In fact, even in the last days of apartheid, it was breaking through and today it plays a major role in virtually every sector of economic activity in the Western Cape and at all levels of the society.

Although the coloured community suffered all the hardships of apartheid – some would say apartheid applied more cruelly to them than anybody else – and therefore identified and fully supported the ANC in the struggle to end apartheid, it has never had an easy relationship with the ANC. For one thing, coloured political opposition to apartheid was conducted mainly through the United Democratic Front (UDF); and although coloureds are included in the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) codes, with ANC political dominance coloureds have increasingly felt themselves to be discriminated against – even in the Western Cape. The result is that the ANC, from initially holding the loyalty of the majority of the coloured community, has increasingly lost out. The fact that the province is governed by the DA is the most obvious result.

It is against this background that certain statements made by Mr Jimmy Manyi, recently appointed ANC National Government spokesperson caused a blistering row in the Western Cape and generally in the country. He said that the coloureds were over-concentrated in the Western Cape and in effect if they wanted jobs they should move out and seek work elsewhere in the country.

Mr Manyi, it must be said is a highly-controversial public person who made this statement in his previous capacity as Director-General of Labour and in terms of the ANC government’s racially-driven employment classifications. His statement was made last year but when recently unearthed caused banner headlines.

At this point Trevor Manuel, South Africa’s distinguished former Finance Minister and probably the leading member of the coloured community in South African politics, waded in with a blistering public attack on Mr Manyi. He described him as a racist in the Verwoerdian mould – and there can be no more damning criticism than that. Manuel’s intervention was calculated, conscious, and deliberately personal and he ensured maximum coverage by sending it as a statement to the Independent Group of newspapers. Manuel’s statement, it is clear, was made without prior consultation with the ANC or alliance associates. He clearly had not gone via the official channels and immediately his statement generated a flood of comments for and against.

This was one minister criticising another person with ministerial status and sitting in the Cabinet. Nothing like this has happened before, and the immediate question was: What were Manuel’s motives? One understandable theory – which I don’t buy - came from Helen Zille, leader of the DA, who suggested that he was trying to minimise, from an ANC point of view, the negative impact of what Manyi had said on coloured voters, particularly in view of the local government elections which take place in a couple of months time.

South Africa from being the land of apartheid, with universal discrimination against persons of colour, has become the most racially conscious country in the world. In fact, Jimmy Manyi was reflecting the legal, policy and political reality of the country; and this was something that Manuel acknowledged when he said that racism exists in “the highest echelons of government”. The Cape Argus observed that Manuel had somewhat obscurely added that government should be more “vigilant” of Manyi’s handling of employment equity issues as chairman of the Employment Equity Commission. The point is that Manyi was being undiplomatic but honest in presenting the consequences of the government’s proposed amendments to labour legislation when he made that remark. The reality is that those amendments are themselves highly racially conscious and discriminatory.

What Manuel, in this rare public and calculated rebuke, is in effect objecting to is the racial dimension but also the dominant ethos within the ANC and in ruling circles – an ethos of money grubbing, corruption, political indiscipline, intellectual vacuity, and a dumbed-down culture as when internationally distinguished Mamphela Ramphele, writing on Sunday told of literally hundreds of young girls deliberately getting pregnant so as to benefit from social grants, Julius Malema the next day calls for more babies! This is not what Manuel represents. The title of his biography by Pippa Green is Choice, Not Fate, and it says what I wish to say about Manuel. What he has chosen to start is not going to go away. Manuel knows that there is a significant number of black South Africans who find the sleaze, incompetence and nepotism obnoxious and offensive and who are concerned about the future of the country. People like Cyril Ramaphosa, Tokyo Sexwale, Mamphela Ramphele, Vusi Khanyile, Moeletsi Mbeki, Mac Maharaj, Pallo Jordan, for example, must be as unhappy as Manuel, as are many of today’s generation.

How President Zuma handles this remains to be seen. But what should immediately happen is that the proposed amendments to the Employment Equity Act which Manyi was defending should immediately be withdrawn. South Africa is already, by virtue of ANC policy, the most racially conscious country in the world; and to persist with these amendments and this kind of legislation not only heightens the racial aspect but does enormous harm to skills that our country badly needs. How can a government, which is profoundly aware of the skills shortage in this country, actually talk of putting people with skills out of work or excluding them from employment?