PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma’s stubborn insistence on not stepping down is playing into the hands of the populist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), says Roelf Meyer.

There is a leadership credibility gap at the moment, he says, and unfortunately Zuma has to take responsibility for that, simply because he is the head of state, and the one who thrust this situation upon the country. He has to step aside, Meyer says.

Meyer, a National Party cabinet minister before 1994 and the first minister of constitutional development in Nelson Mandela’s post-democracy cabinet, says this issue is about the national interest — and Zuma needs to recognise that.

This train of events was set in motion, Meyer agrees, by the firing of finance minister Nhlanhla Nene in December — which he describes as “the biggest mistake in recent history”. Then followed the recent constitutional court ruling against Zuma over the Nkandla debacle.

“All of these contributed to the lack of credibility I refer to, and this is something we cannot afford at all … the only way to restore credibility in our country now is for him to go.”

With local government elections now set for August 3, the stakes are even higher. Says Meyer: “The ruling party will most certainly suffer in the local government elections [if he does not step down]. They might even split. And the biggest beneficiary either way, if Zuma refuses to go, will be the EFF.”

The former politician was speaking to the Financial Mail on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the constitution, which he, along with others, helped to craft. (See Features April 7-13.)

Since he retired from politics 16 years ago he has dabbled in business but now spends most of his time travelling the world selling SA’s success story and the negotiated end to apartheid.

It is rare that one hears the characteristically optimistic Meyer strike a grim tone. But, he says, the Nkandla scandal is a crisis with no obvious end in sight.

Meyer was intricately involved in the Convention for a Democratic SA (Codesa) talks of the early 1990s that paved the way for the 1994 election and the 1996 adoption of the constitution.

The background is a fascinating tale of justice prevailing against steep odds. Back in 1991, the ANC and the NP began the first round of Codesa. But the talks collapsed in May of 1992 when the parties failed to reach agreement over the final constitutional dispensation.

Tensions escalated in June that year, when 40 residents of Boipatong were massacred in an attack that hardened the ANC’s stance. Two months later, the liberation movement started a month-long campaign of rolling mass action calling for its demands to be met. The crisis deepened in September, when two dozen ANC demonstrators were gunned down in Bisho, the capital of the then Ciskei.

Behind these bloody scenes Meyer, who had been appointed the minister of constitutional affairs in May and who was head of the NP’s negotiating arm, had maintained discreet talks with Cyril Ramaphosa, his counterpart in the ANC.

“It was very difficult,” he remembers. “On the one side Cyril is talking to us, on the other he is mobilising against us.”

In July, both parties agreed to officially re-open talks through Meyer and Ramaphosa.

A number of others were part of these informal talks, including former ANC treasurer Mathews Phosa, former justice minister Penuell Maduna, SA Communist Party stalwart Joe Slovo, Zuma’s former spokesman Mac Maharaj and Zuma himself. On the NP’s side, Meyer was joined by former spy boss Niel Barnard and civil servant and constitutional expert Fanie van der Merwe.

Between them they hammered out the so-called Record of Understanding that was signed on September 26 1992.

“That record was the real settlement, as it contained an agreement around equal rights and, most importantly, a constitutional democracy as the end goal. That was fundamental. That was the paradigm shift.”

Those meetings, held in government houses in Pretoria and in guest houses in Johannesburg, were intense.

“Someone later told me we met 38 times in the space of two months,” he recalls. “There were many misgivings and we walked out of those talks on a regular basis, but every time knowing there was no other way — we had to get back to the table. And within a day or two we would be back in the ring. Either Cyril or I would pick up the phone to one another.”

That was when a relationship of trust was forged between the two men. “But we were still opponents, even though by then we were working towards the same goal.”

In 1993, the talks resumed and the interim constitution was written over the space of many months at the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park. It was adopted at the end of that year, paving the way for the free elections to follow in 1994.

But in November of 1993, the issue of amnesty began to top the agenda, and with little time on their side, Maharaj and Van der Merwe drafted what Meyer regards as a “poetic” description of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, enshrined in the interim document.

Post-1994, Meyer retained his post as the minister of constitutional affairs in Nelson Mandela’s first cabinet, with Valli Moosa as his deputy.

Together they oversaw the work of the constitutional assembly in parliament, which was responsible for the drafting of the final document. They began to gather input from constitutional democracies around the world, including Canada and India.

How did they marry the notion of monarchies to a constitutional democracy?

“After much debate, we came up with the Council for Traditional Leaders,” says Meyer. This accommodates many of the needs of traditional leaders but does not allow them to overrule the constitution.

There were lengthy debates around the devolution of power.

Eventually by May of 1996, they were sitting with what he describes as “probably one of the best constitutions in the world”.

“If we look at the recent Nkandla judgment by the constitutional court, what we see is that it clearly looks after our rights and interests.”

Though Meyer resigned from government in 1996, he co-founded the United Democratic Movement with Bantu Holomisa a year later. He resigned from active political life in 2000.

He maintains close ties with Ramaphosa, someone he describes as a close compatriot. Borrowing from the words of former constitutional court judge Albie Sachs, he says: “We are more than just friends. We made peace together.”