South Africa's Next President
Zuma Poised to Become Next SA President, Corruption Charges Linger
Newly elected ANC President, Jacob Zuma is highly likely to become SA's next president. Will he be able to shake new corruption charges and carry on Mandela's legacy?
In a continent most readily associated with corruption, poverty and dictatorship, South Africa is often cited as an example of a successful African country. Cruelly, it is also often noted that South Africa is the one African nation that has been ruled by the descendants of Europeans for all but fifteen years. Ruled for decades by an all-white apartheid regime, when Nelson Mandela finally won the presidency in the 1994 election, he inherited the political, economic and legal framework from the previous regime that has enabled the country to continue to succeed. Although the nation has struggled with its high rate of AIDS and violent crime, South Africa has remained a model of development and democracy for the rest of the continent.
Much of the new integrated nation’s initial credibility rested on the huge respect commanded by its first president, Nelson Mandela. Although widely prophesized, massive inter-racial violence after the 1994 elections never materialized, largely due to Mandela’s great personal integrity and his ability to foster reconciliation between Africans and Afrikaners.
In the upcoming 2009 South African elections, the nation is poised to elect a very different man president. Jacob Zuma was elected the new president of the African National Congress (ANC), ousting the current president Thabo Mbeki for the top spot in the party. If historical precedent is followed, his election almost guarantees that he will become the next president of South Africa.
Zuma has impressive credentials for the position. Born to a poor family in rural Natal, he joined the ANC at age seventeen, and was arrested and sent to Robben Island to serve ten years at age twenty-one. He worked for the party under Nelson Mandela’s presidency and was appointed deputy president by Mbeki in 1999. However, in 2005 Mbeki accused Zuma of plotting against him and forced him to resign. Their animosity, personal and political, continues to polarize South African politics.
To add to the political drama, the two men have notably opposing personalities. Mbeki is cautious, secretive, and almost cold at political functions. Zuma is the stereotypical flamboyant, charismatic African leader, who is also trailed by accusations of corruption. Not forty-eight hours after his appointment as ANC president, the acting National Prosecutions Authority chief, Mokotedi Mpshe, announced that Zuma was “sure” to be indicted on corruption charges. And this is not his first brush with the law. In 2005, he was charged with accepting a bribe, but the case was dropped on a technical matter. Later that year, a friend’s HIV-positive daughter accused him of rape. After a highly publicized trial, (during which he caused a scandal with his claim that he prevented contracting the disease by taking a shower) he was acquitted, but his reputation was irreparably damaged.
Or was it? Even after these sordid details became common knowledge, Zuma won the top position in his party, and is poised to claim the top position in the country. Some commentators have wondered if, after the saintliness of Mandela and the austerity of Mbeki, South Africans find Zuma –and his indiscretions – appealing.
Most of Zuma’s supporters have written off the most recent charges as yet another attempt by Mbeki to derail his political ambitions. But now that Zuma is directly in the spotlight, there is little chance the charges can be quietly dropped. If he is elected president in 2009, South Africa must be prepared to brace for another high-profile trial involving Zuma, which will do little to foster the unity or faith in democracy that are crucial to its future success.
References:
African National Congress, Statement by the President of the African National Congress, Cde Jacob Zuma, to the closing of the 52nd National Congress of the ANC, December 20, 2007
Brown, Karima, Hajra Omarjee and Amy Musgrave. “Zuma ‘Tsunami’ Sweeps Away ANC Old Guard.” Business Day (Johannesburg), 19 December 2007
Webb, Boyd and Murray Williams. “Zuma Will Be Charged.” Cape Argus (Cape Town), December 20, 2007.
Wines, Michael. “Survivor is Poised to Lead South Africa.” New York Times, December 20, 2007
