Nine months into the Jacob Zuma administration and we're drowning in policies and statements of intent. Various factions are being allowed to run wild. Carol Paton looks at the political landscape in 2010 and argues that it's time for the president to take charge and deliver.

The year 2010 has an auspicious ring to it. That probably has less to do with politics than the fact that the soccer World Cup will be held here in six months, bringing with it hope that the world will view SA favourably.

Inspired by the hype around the football, the public mood is full of expectation: South Africans are hoping that the year will be one of opportunity and delivery. President Jacob Zuma and his cabinet know this. With the kick-off of the political year imminent - Zuma gives his state of the nation address next month - how do they plan to meet these expectations?

"Getting down to work", "rolling up their sleeves" and "business unusual" have been the theme of successive presidential addresses for so long that the phrases hardly have meaning.

But implementation rather than policy ideas, doing rather than talking, remain the central challenge for government. Zuma, who has not yet been a year in office, and those around him believe that they are tackling the challenges of inertia in government differently from before.

The evidence for this is the performance monitoring and evaluation system that minister in the presidency Collins Chabane and his adviser, former Rand Merchant Bank executive Ketso Gordhan, are putting in place. The cabinet lekgotla, which took place last weekend, focused on setting targets in each area of government as a means of holding officials and cabinet ministers to account.

One example will be improving outcomes in education by testing the literacy and numeracy levels of children in grades 3 and 6 in annual systemic tests and evaluations. There is the possibility then that schools and teachers could be held accountable for unacceptable performance.

Education and health are where the presidency has concentrated most attention, setting discernible and measurable targets. And though education and health are the two biggest disaster areas, both ministers, many insiders believe, have given some grounds for hope.

Education minister Angie Motshekga acted with remarkable swiftness in making pragmatic changes to the school curriculum within weeks of her appointment and pronouncing the death of outcomes-based education.

Health minister Aaron Motsoaledi has quickly earned respect in the health sector, not least for his pragmatic and measured approach to what it will take to fix the health system. While giving his support in principle to the yet undefined idea of a national health insurance scheme, Motsoaledi has made it clear that the priority is to first fix the public system. He has also confronted the HIV/Aids problem, securing more funds in the medium-term budget policy statement and lowering the threshold for qualification for anti retroviral drugs.

Will the target-setting approach work?

Thabo Mbeki's administration was also fond of setting targets. Mbeki promised schools under trees would be abolished by the end of 2004 and bucket toilets by the end of 2007. Years later, both remain features of the poorest communities.

Zuma has also already run into trouble with populist, attention-grabbing targets. In his first state of the nation speech he promised 500 000 jobs would be created by the end of 2009. Since he failed to explain that these were meant to be short-term public works employment opportunities, Zuma looked bad when the economy lost 1m real jobs over the same period because of the recession.

Those with insight into the work of the monitoring and evaluation staff in the presidency, such as Development Bank of Southern Africa development planning head Ravi Naidoo, are confident that this time the target-driven approach can work. "I am more encouraged by last year's progress than by many things I saw over the past 10 years. All clusters of government are focused," says Naidoo. "But the issue is that there need to be consequences when targets are missed. What happens when somebody doesn't perform? But now, at least, there is a sense that the performance of the public service matters."

Enforcing accountability could allow Zuma to distinguish himself

Despite similar rhetoric, Mbeki was unable to deal with either ineptitude or corruption for fear of unsettling delicate party political dynamics or making enemies out of (particularly provincial) allies. Will Zuma get tough under circumstances in which his predecessor failed?

In addition to teachers, it is particularly important that accountability be enforced in local government, the delivery point of most social services. It is notable that in the ANC's January 8 anniversary statement, Zuma devoted considerable space to the problem, hinting that he would remove incapable people who had secured their jobs through political connections. This would be done even if it meant changing public-service regulations and depoliticising key local government appointments by not allowing municipal employees to hold leadership positions in political parties.

Enforcing this and stopping the "deployment" of party members into state jobs would make a huge difference to the conditions feeding corruption in cities and towns throughout SA.

These are the good and positive things that Zuma hopes to do. But how likely are his statements of intent to become reality? Insiders have a dim view on the prospects for his success.

To those who are not as close to the action, yet depend on government to do things, it's clear that it takes the Zuma administration an inordinately long time to get things done. "This government takes very, very long to do things," says Industrial Development Corp chief economist Lumkile Mondi, who has worked closely with the Zuma administration on critical areas such as plans to mitigate job losses.

This observation is echoed by professionals who work closely with government, business people and many experienced government officials.

Further examples in the areas of education and health illustrate the problem.

A relatively simple plan to produce workbooks for grades 1 to 6 crashed when the tender was poorly managed and had to be cancelled. The workbooks with ready-made lesson material would have helped weaker teachers deliver the curriculum. Capacity in the department of basic education, say individuals who work in it, has been "severely depleted" as many of the most competent officials have left, either to join the new department of higher education or for other jobs.

In health, a similar human resource problem prevails, says a sector specialist whose area of work is strongly regulated by departmental policy. The department lacks a leader and Motsoaledi is yet to appoint a director-general after the last one left nearly four months ago.

Some of the slowness arises directly from Zuma. Says a government consultant: "It could have been a lot faster if we had a different president."

Economic development minister Ebrahim Patel, for instance, is still waiting for Zuma to define the role of his department. Since June, Zuma has assured Patel on several occasions that he would be "in charge" of economic policy and has said publicly that the question would be settled "within weeks", but still has been unable to define what being "in charge" means. Meanwhile, Patel has carved out some areas of work, with trade & industry minister Rob Davies, but says he is awaiting clarity on other "detailed responsibilities" from Zuma.

"Zuma makes promises of a contradictory nature," says an ANC leader, explaining government's apparent inability to settle the question of the economic ministries. And it doesn't just apply to economic ministries. "That's his style; he's always worked in a way to keep everybody happy. You can't expect much more from him," says another.

If speed isn't one of Zuma's attributes, does he have the political strength to bring about the accountable and efficient government he claims to desire?

Zuma's real political strength is an unknown quantity. He keeps out of the public limelight, except to perform set pieces in which he never wanders from the prepared text. Few know what he himself thinks, as he never expresses a personal opinion publicly. Official ANC statements or electronic "letters from the president" are always formulaic. His view is usually that "there is nothing to fear from debate". But inside the ANC, Zuma still appears to enjoy credibility and respect. Though the alliance that made him ANC president in December 2007 is dividing into acrimonious factions, he hasn't done anything to lose the support of either side.

In the shorthand conveniently used by the media, the dividing line in the ANC is between communists and non communists, of which the latter claim to be on a mission to save the ANC from the Left. But the shorthand description masks important factors in the balance of power in the ANC. First, while it appears that ANC Youth League president Julius Malema acts with the sanction of the ANC as a whole, the reality is that the majority of ANC leaders on the national executive committee (NEC) have persistently chosen to keep quiet. The majority disapproves strongly of Malema and his rude and populist anti-communist rantings, but few have the guts to say so.

Says an SA Communist Party member: "The majority of right-minded people are not speaking up. Three-quarters of the NEC don't agree with what Julius is doing and saying."

A quick scan of the composition of the ANC NEC will reveal that the anti-communist rabble rousers who support Malema are indeed a small grouping who could almost be counted on the fingers of one hand. Among them can be included, at most, two or three members of cabinet, and only a few senior leaders.

But keeping quiet can be as bad as colluding with the enemy, something that Mbeki found out the hard way.

Says a government official who backed Mbeki in his fight with Zuma : "The NEC has always lacked champions. Most on the NEC have been cowards. That is part of what caused the problems for Mbeki; people chose to keep quiet."

It may be that many in the NEC will wait to see which way things fall or, pursuing personal ambition, will try to play both sides. It is likely that as key national gatherings of the ANC draw closer, the anti-communist or African nationalist sentiments will be expressed ever louder.

However, despite the negligible support in the NEC, the offensive by the anti-communists has driven the Left back into their corner. After the election, Cosatu and the SACP came out guns blazing over wage demands, labour brokers and the national planning commission, including personally attacking the commission's head, Trevor Manuel. On top of their audacious demands, Cosatu and the SACP then pushed to have the alliance rather than the ANC declared the "political centre" from which strategy should originate.

Now, with ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe unfairly labelled as partisan and fears of a communist takeover unleashed, the Left has become very silent.

SACP deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin describes the stirring up of emotion on public platforms on issues like the appointment of Africans to important positions in managing the economy or the nationalisation of mines as "populist demagoguery". He feels they are raised not for genuine debate, but as crude and divisive political point-scoring.

The ANC's vulnerability to populism is serious. The election of leaders and public representatives depends on the popular vote within the ANC - a popular vote that can easily be bought or traded for patronage or commercial favours.

Popular mobilisation has also become a typical strategy to defend political incumbents in jobs or positions when charges of incompetence or corruption begin to mount. In towns and the smaller cities there have been marches aimed at removing or protecting various politicians or officials, all on the basis of who can shout the loudest. Zuma's ANC has done nothing to stem this tendency.

During 2010, the intensity of the internal party dynamics will grow. Towards the end of the year the ANC holds its half-term assessment, the national general council (NGC), an important milestone in the build-up to the next elective conference in 2012. The ANC Youth League's anti-communist mobilisation has in large part been fuelled by this: at the NGC the league hopes to nail down positions for 2012, among them the secretary-general post, which Malema has confessed they've earmarked for former youth league leader Fikile Mbalula.

Adding fuel to the intense local and provincial dynamics will be the 2011 local government elections. To describe the competition for positions as councillors as fierce would be an understatement. In the past, this competition has involved bribery, extortion, popular mobilisation and violence.

All these conditions - intense local political competition, expedient populist mobilisation and factionalism - will mean that political dynamics within his own party will make it very difficult for Zuma to act against ineptitude, incompetence, lack of accountability or corruption in government.

To achieve the targets that he sets for his ministers and government departments in his state of the nation address, Zuma will have to take on not just weak and unwilling public servants but populism, corruption and the dangerous tendencies within his own party. Given the evidence of his consultative, indecisive political leadership style so far, there is no sign this will happen. We should prepare for more frustrations with isolated areas of progress.