[DEBATE] : Even Time gets it ... [that Zuma is a stealth candidate]

[Sean Jacobs]

["... Thabo Mbeki'sfailure to get re-elected as head of the country's 
ruling party underlines just how much the leaders who ran the struggle 
against apartheid under Nelson Mandela have lost touch with their roots 
... Zuma's extraordinary comeback ... is testament to the anger the 
aloof Mbeki arouses in the party's rank and file. At the ANC 
conference, delegates booed him and drowned out his allies with songs 
supporting Zuma, whose rejection by South Africa's élite has made him a 
hero to the poor."]

Time magazine
Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007
South Africa's Zuma-rang
By Alex Perry

South African president Thabo Mbeki'sfailure to get re-elected as head 
of the country's ruling party underlines just how much the leaders who 
ran the struggle against apartheid under Nelson Mandela have lost touch 
with their roots. At the annual conference of the African National 
Congress (ANC), in the northern city of Polokwane, Jacob Zuma, 65, was 
elected party chief with a 61%-to-39% split on Dec. 18. Now that Zuma 
has unseated his bitter rival and former boss, his supporters expect 
him to complete Mbeki's humiliation by replacing him as head of state 
in the next general election, in 2009.

Zuma's political career has boomeranged from bigwig to pariah and back. 
Mbeki sacked him as Deputy President in 2005 when Zuma's financial 
adviser was convicted of soliciting a bribe for him in a French arms 
deal. Related charges were filed against Zuma on Dec. 14. And though he 
was acquitted in a rape trial in 2006, his testimony revealed shocking 
attitudes about sex and AIDS, including an admission that he had 
unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman but showered afterward to 
reduce the risk of infection.

Zuma's extraordinary comeback--he was recently endorsed by the ANC 
Women's League--is testament to the anger the aloof Mbeki arouses in 
the party's rank and file. At the ANC conference, delegates booed him 
and drowned out his allies with songs supporting Zuma, whose rejection 
by South Africa's élite has made him a hero to the poor. The 
constitution prevents Mbeki from running for re-election, but Zuma will 
also be barred if he is convicted of corruption. That means South 
Africa's leadership could hinge on whether its new top politician is on 
his way to the presidency or to jail.

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Sean Jacobs
Blogging as Leo Africanus at http://theleoafricanus.blogspot.com