The State Capture Reunion Tour: Pretoria's Belated Attempt to Rein in Jacob Zuma

Jacob Zuma may no longer possess the keys to the Union Buildings, but the former South African president retains a remarkable ability to humiliate his government on the global stage. Following a highly conspicuous reunion in India with a central figure of the state capture scandal, Pretoria is desperately attempting to close the stable door. Foreign Affairs Minister Ronald Lamola has formally recommended that parliament and the presidency implement strict new protocols for former heads of state travelling abroad. The objective is to impose transparency on ex-leaders who continue to enjoy state support while pursuing private agendas.

The catalyst for this sudden bureaucratic urgency was a photograph taken last month at an Indian temple. It featured the 84-year-old Zuma alongside Ajay Gupta, a businessman whose family is synonymous with the systemic looting of the South African state. The optics of a former president mingling with a man implicated in economic sabotage were sufficiently damaging. Yet, the presence of Anil Sooklal, South Africa's high commissioner to India, in the same photograph elevated the incident to a diplomatic crisis. Sooklal has since been recalled to Pretoria, despite his denials of any professional misconduct.

Lamola’s proposed regulations require former presidents to supply comprehensive itineraries prior to departure. According to the foreign minister, this data will allow the government to make an informed assessment of the appropriate level of support required and any associated reputational, political, diplomatic or security risks. Assessing the reputational risk of Jacob Zuma is an exercise in stating the obvious. A judicial commission concluded in 2022 that Zuma effectively outsourced the management of the national economy to the Gupta family, hiring and firing cabinet ministers at their instruction.

The Gupta brothers fled South Africa in 2018 as the net began to close around their vast patronage network. While authorities quietly cancelled the arrest warrant for Ajay Gupta, his younger brothers, Atul and Rajesh, remain beyond the reach of the justice system. A 2023 attempt to extradite them from the United Arab Emirates ended in failure, leaving the public to watch as the architects of state capture enjoy their wealth in exile. For Zuma to then conduct a public audience with a Gupta brother is a brazen display of impunity, described by one minister as extending a crude gesture to the entire nation.

This is hardly an isolated incident of rogue statesmanship. Last year, operating as the leader of the opposition uMkhonto we Sizwe party after his expulsion from the ruling African National Congress, Zuma travelled to Morocco. Posing in front of the South African flag, he publicly endorsed Rabat's territorial claims over Western Sahara. This contradicted Pretoria's established foreign policy, forcing the government to issue a diplomatic protest to Morocco. The new travel protocols represent a belated recognition that a disgraced former leader is a liability that a functioning state can ill afford to subsidize.

Written by Martina Kirchner martina.kirchner@alpineweekly.com