Ruling party’s fight for its future kicks off
JOHANNESBURG (AP): THE FIGHT to replace South Africa’s scandal-prone President Jacob Zuma began yesterday as thousands of delegates of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) gathered to elect a new leader, with Zuma acknowledging “failures” that have threatened the party’s future.
The reputation of Nelson Mandela’s liberation movement has been battered during the tenure of Zuma, whose second term as party president is up.
The new ANC leader is likely to become South Africa’s next president in 2019 elections.
The two clear front-runners are Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, former chair of the African Union Commission and Zuma’s ex-wife. The selection is expected to be announced today.
Voters are frustrated with the ANC as Zuma’s administration has been mired in scandal and corruption allegations. Africa’s oldest liberation movement, which celebrated its 105th anniversary this year, led the fight against the system of white minority rule known as apartheid and has governed South Africa since the first democratic elections in 1994.
Observers say the party needs to restore its reputation or it could be forced into a governing coalition for the first time. Party divisions run so deep that analysts say either outcome, Ramaphosa or Dlamini-Zuma, could mean the end of the ANC’s dominance as members of the losing faction could form a new party.
“We must attend to enormous challenges facing our movement,” Zuma told the gathering, which opened with emotional appeals for unity.
He pushed back against allegations of graft, asserting that “theft and corruption” in the private sector is just as bad as in government and that “being black and successful is being made synonymous to being corrupt”.
But Zuma said “greed is posing a serious threat” to the party and pointed out warnings that the ANC could implode. “We need to find ways of protecting the ANC from corporate greed,” he said.
Zuma didn’t endorse a successor, saying any of the seven candidates would make a “first-class president”. He said he met with them and all agreed to abide by the party’s selection.
Under Zuma, unemployment in South Africa has risen to nearly 30 per cent and economic growth has slumped, briefly dipping into recession this year. More than 55 per cent of the country lives below the poverty line. In this Thursday, December 14, 2017 photo provided by the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, flames rise behind a house off Ladera Lane near Bella Vista Drive in Santa Barbara. SANTA BARBARA (AP): hot, dry and windy — conditions for an Ventura and Santa Barbara counties has HE MASSIVE wildfire that unprecedented 13 consecutive days. already burned more than 1,000 buildings, California has been battling since Everything about the fire was massive, including well over 750 homes. early December has now ballooned from a footprint larger than that of Another 18,000 buildings are still in into the third-largest in the many cities to the sheer scale of jeopardy, including mansions in the state’s history, burning a record amount destruction that cremated entire neighbourhoods wealthy enclave of Montecito. of acreage, officials said yesterday. or the legions attacking it: Another focus of firefighting was on
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The region has had “red flag” — or The Thomas Fire surging through
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