become the next president. Vying for the coveted position are President Jacob Zuma, 70, and his vice president, Kgalema Motlanthe, 63. The contest comes at a time when South Africa (Pop. 50m) has been described as one of the most unequal societies in the world, with more than half of its people living in poverty, and its bond rating downgraded by at least two international rating agencies, including Moody’s, and Standard and Poor’s. There are also widespread allegations of corruption.
Mr Zuma, who has no formal education, and is self-taught, is expected to garner enough support from the party’s delegates to win the leadership election at the conference taking place in Bloemfontein (Mangaung). He is still charismatic and clever, compared with his challenger who is described as ‘quiet and unassuming.’ A Zulu from KwaZulu-Natal, he is very popular among the Zulu, the country’s largest ethnic group. But even though Zuma is expected to win, he deserves to lose. The reasons are legion and compelling.
Apart from lacking the intellectual depth to innovatively tackle the mounting social and economic problems facing Africa’s largest economy, Zuma is also embarrassingly frivolous and unable to summon the gravitas required to replicate a fraction of the nobility Nelson Mandela, and to a lesser extent, Thabo Mbeki, imbued South Africa. Even though he makes strenuous efforts to separate his public life from his private life, it is disturbingly remarkable that Zuma has been married six times, currently has four wives, and has some 21 children. The business of presiding over South Africa is too serious to be left in the hands of a serial polygamist permanently distracted by the opposite sex. In 2006, he barely escaped a rape conviction, in spite of making very ludicrous statements about sex and HIV infection.
Even if we ignore his 2009 acquittal on corruption charges, though his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was jailed for soliciting bribes in a $5bn arms contract scandal, Zuma has really never shaken off the image of someone who cannot be trusted to properly manage the finances of his country. But much more importantly, Zuma deserves to lose because of his poor handling of the mineworkers’ strike which convulsed the country in August. Some 34 miners were shot dead while protesting low wages and poor working conditions at the Lonmin plant near Marikana. It was the most violent repression perpetrated by the police since the collapse of apartheid, indicating that little has changed in that country’s law enforcement operations. Other unions have since embarked on their own protests to press for better working conditions and higher wages, and Zuma has equally displayed appalling inability to tackle the growing discontent.
If Zuma wins the top party post, he will probably lead the ANC and preside over the affairs of his country up to the 2019 elections, by which time he will be 77. It is not his advanced age that is the problem. What may constitute a tragedy for South Africa is that Zuma is unlikely to display sterling leadership qualities or exhibit more restraint than he has shown so far. He will not be more innovative, he will not be more intellectual, he will not be less frivolous, and he will not be less distracted. The leadership position his country hopes to secure in Africa will of course be threatened the more, as will its chances of social and economic turnaround. With South Africa undermined by leadership insufficiency, and Zimbabwe racing downhill on account of President Robert Mugabe’s insensitivity and poor judgement, and Nigeria wracked by egregious leadership incompetence, the outlook for Africa grows dimmer by the day, if not by the hour.
THE NATION
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