What do Zuma's supporters expect?

There is a huge campaign from those on the left of the political spectrum, including Cosatu, the ANCYL and the SACP, to support Zuma at all costs. They are threatening to bring the country to a standstill. Shop owners in Pietermaritzburg where Zuma is to be tried, are already complaining about the disruption caused by thousands of locusts descending on their town.

There are obviously problematic aspects around the whole, sorry saga, such as the moronic utterances by Julius Malema, who is surely a miracle human, having survived for years after being born without a brain. The judiciary is being undermined and is under real threat by a party which is increasingly out of control. The above issues have however been discussed at length in the media.

What is getting rather less attention is the question why are they so fanatic in supporting Zuma? Why risk international condemnation, increased emigration, instability and anarchy in support of one man? A man, it must be said, who is intellectually way below average (if not retarded), who should keep quiet on economic matters, who is of suspect moral stature (if not a career criminal), with a Grade 4 education and has more than 9 wives, an unknown number of concubines and common-law wives and God knows how many legitimate and illegitimate children. George Bush is routinely mocked for being unable to pronounce "nuclear", yet he went to Yale and achieved a master's degree. Where did Zuma go? Did he pass the old Standard 3?

Or is the above perhaps the very thing that appeals to the communists - the fact that somebody without real opinions of his own or the capacity to make good judgments would be easily manipulated and influenced, unlike the coldly intellectual Thabo Mbeki? Is Zuma furthermore perhaps the ultimate New South African man and therefore a role model to many - a brain-dead criminal whose genitals override his mental processes on a regular basis?

Let's say they succeed in pressuring the judiciary into submission, and Zuma does become president. Jeremy Cronin of the SACP assures us that Zuma will become president and not go to jail. What kind of policy changes do they expect from a President Zuma, and specifically what does the SACP expect from Zuma?

One suspects that there is a perception in South Africa's paleo-Marxist (those idiots for whom the Berlin wall never fell) circles that there will be a marked shift to the left. There is a chilling trend these days to speak about the revolution, something that was mostly absent in Mandela's and Mbeki's day. Unspecified enemies of the revolution are apparently everywhere. These must be quote eliminated unquote.

A big shift to the left has frightening implications. Expect wholesale expropriation and nationalization. Expect more wastage of resources on social grants. Expect a destruction of private enterprise.

Are South Africans staring down the barrel of a second phase of a socialist revolution, whereby the rampant left wing intends to turn South Africa into another Cuba or Venezuela?