The UK’s prime minister after next is sounding a lot like Jacob Zuma

The rules are there to give effect to the will of the people, right? Nigel Farage is taking the same ultra-populist approach as the one that sent South Africa down an unfortunate path.

Listening to proxies of Nigel Farage talk about “the ultimate authority” of voters this week, I had a full-body flashback to sitting across from Jacob Zuma as he talked about the nature of power.

It was 2007, and Zuma was effectively a private citizen. Later he would become president of first the ANC and then South Africa, and start to entrench what looked a lot like a kleptocracy to the educated eye. But at that point, he was effectively in limbo, having been fired from the government on suspicion of corruption and with stop-start efforts to hold him accountable stalled, again.

Zuma did not want to talk about what money had come from where and how he had spent it. He wanted to talk about who he was answerable to, how the system should really work. Maverick magazine ended up coining the term “Zumocracy” for it, and this is how Kevin Bloom and I distilled it in the article:

The bottom-up approach of the ANC – as Zuma describes it – leaves all the power in the hands of the members and branches. All the power.

Zuma proved that thesis, substituting popular support for such wearisome complexities as being prosecuted for corruption. Then he rode that donkey all the way to market, to the detriment of the economy and the rule of law.

And right from the start, it was hard to argue with him. Looking through hours of transcripts now, nearly two decades later, it is clear I never managed to spin up a decent counter. If the people reasonably assume a leader has broken key rules intended to protect the system and elect him anyway, then what is there to argue with? The system is there to serve the people, not the other way around.

That seems to be exactly Nigel Farage’s approach.

“I’ve decided that the people of Clacton should be the judges of my actions,” he said this week of the by-election he triggered in his constituency by resigning from Parliament. “This will be a people versus the establishment by-election.”

Now there is a direct parallel. The financial (mis)dealings that Zuma and Farage have been accused of are quite different. The ANC was a ruling party inside of which Zuma ran an insurgency, while Farage’s Reform is an upstart. But Farage’s presentation of himself as an outsider being unfairly judged by hostile elites and their tame media, that is all but verbatim vintage Zuma.

So is the identity-coded language Farage is using to reassure his base, and broaden his appeal, while avoiding entirely speaking in technocratic terms.

Zuma framed controversy as proof of his importance, with the implication that it was also proof of his innocence. So does Farage.

And of course Zuma sought legitimacy through election – and got it, as South Africa voted for an ANC under Zuma.

None of this says that the United Kingdom will suffer under Farage as South Africa suffered under Zuma. Just because Zuma proved that a rules-based order is better for everyone, and just because Donald Trump is doing his best to prove the same thing in America, does not mean the UK won’t flourish under a Farage administration that substitutes popularity for norms and standards.

But looking back at those interviews with Zuma, there’s a worrying difference in tone between the two men. Zuma preached conciliation, stressing national unity and cross-community dialogue, and seemed to be genuinely keen to reduce fear of what his taking office would mean.

He spoke like a leader in waiting who did not want to poison the polity for which he would soon be responsible. He spoke of fighting as a bad thing, except when he claimed to be fighting for media freedom.

Farage is all about the combat. He wants to set up institutional confrontation, and his party seems disappointed it won’t get the political theatre of a properly contested by-election.

“I will fight to win,” said Farage. “I will fight to continue the political revolution that Reform has started.”

So he might, given the chance. The ANC is still talking about furthering the revolution after 30 years.