Politically, you don’t mess with either Russian President Vladimir Putin or his South African counterpart, Jacob Zuma. Neither has lost a battle in a very long while.
Putin’s record speaks for itself: two terms as Russian President, then a quick side-step into the Prime Minister’s office, with his puppet in the Presidency, and then, quick as a flash, back into the Kremlin for a third and probably a fourth term. He’s neutralised almost all opposition controls the media and the judiciary and has just annexed the Crimea, taking it back into Mother Russia. What happens next in Ukraine, Crimea’s erstwhile ‘parent’, remains to be seen.
Of Jacob Zuma it is simply said that you cross him at your peril. Just ask Thabo Mbeki. Zuma is also heading for a second term as President, and while he hasn’t neutered the opposition completely or taken control of the media, he’s put in place some draconian legislation – the Secrecy Bill – that might allow him to do just that. Despite intense criticism from the Democratic Alliance and many sections of the media, Zuma has also easily weathered a number of political storms: his fraud and corruption charges, his involvement with the Guptas, the amount his family has benefited from his presidency and, latterly, the furore over Nkandla. It helps, of course, that the SABC is in his control.
So what do these two men have in common that has brought them to the pinnacle of power in their respective countries? And why do so many of us feel deeply uneasy about either man?
It was a chance remark by former JSE CEO, Russell Loubser, that threw it into perspective. I had been interviewing him about a very different subject when the conversation strayed onto the future of South African business. Loubser is optimistic, despite being very annoyed at the performance of the present ANC government, many of whom, he says “don’t have a clue” when it comes to business.
The came the linkage between Putin and Zuma.
“You’ve got a guy like Putin who has done this incredible thing with Crimea: my mouth just hangs open when I listen to his logic and the reason why he’s done what he’s done,” said Loubser. “And then I look at my President Zuma and I sometimes just listen to the crap that comes out of his mouth, or his spokesman, and I say, hang on, but the two have got something in common. Putin came up through the KGB, Zuma was head of ANC Intelligence in exile.”
Loubser’s belief is that a career in the intelligence services produces a certain mentality: “That type of person gets to think in a certain type of way. All of us are brainwashed, to a certain degree, based on the way we are brought up. That’s why you get people who believe absolutely in religion and others who believe absolutely the opposite. What happens behind the eyes depends on a number of things, including how we were shaped growing up.”
In other words, the formative years of our chosen professions determine who we become as leaders.
“It seems to me that people who come up through these murky, law-unto-them-self institutions, like the KGB, or our intelligence services, they think differently. They’ve been wired to think like that,” says Loubser.
Nor is this a phenomenon limited to nations like South Africa and Russia. The briefest glance at the history of the United States since World War II reveals a succession of intelligence organisations, and their chiefs, who believe, without any doubt, that they, too, are above the law.
Presidents Putin and Zuma, the various CIA and NSA bosses – they’re all men who believe the end truly justifies the means. Whatever their language or nationality, they’re all brothers under the intelligence agency skin.
Note: this post was edited on 27.04.14 to include attribution of the quotations to Russell Louber.