Mandela legacy at risk in fierce intraparty fight
JOHANNESBURG — The stakes for Africa’s oldest liberation movement have rarely been higher. As thousands of delegates from the ruling African National Congress party meet this weekend to choose a successor to scandal-ridden President Jacob Zuma, the race between his deputy and exwife threatens to split Nelson Mandela’s legacy.
Zuma is finishing his second and final term as ANC leader, and whoever follows him likely will be elected South Africa’s next president in 2019. Though weakened by multiple corruption allegations against the president, the ANC has led the country since the end of white minority rule in 1994.
Of the seven candidates in the race to succeed Zuma, the two front-runners lead increasingly entrenched party factions: Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, 65, and former African Union Commission chair Nkosazana DlaminiZuma, 68, who is also Zuma’s ex-wife.
Ramaphosa, who helped negotiate an end to apartheid, has become one of the wealthiest men in a democratic South Africa. He presents himself as the reform candidate, pledging to bring an end to graft and revive the flagging economy.
Dlamini-Zuma, a doctor and former government minister, was recently appointed to a parliamentary seat. She has pledged to continue her exhusband’s favored policy of “radical economic transformation” to bring greater equity to an economy still largely controlled by South Africa’s white minority.
“Whites talk too much against (radical economic transformation), saying that we want to use it to loot,” DlaminiZuma said during a visit on Sunday to her rural hometown, according to The Star newspaper. “Who are they to talk about looting? They have been stealing ever since their arrival in this country.”
The choice of Ramaphosa or Dlamini-Zuma as the new ANC leader could determine whether Zuma finishes his term as South Africa’s president or steps down early to allow the new party leader to campaign out of his shadow. Some suggest that either candidate could tell Zuma to resign as head of state, which head of the ruling party has the power to do. “There’s a shared consensus that he is a liability,” said Mcebisi Ndletyana, a professor of politics at the University of Johannesburg.
Whoever prevails during the five-day conference, which begins Saturday, faces a daunting task. The ANC, which marked its 105th anniversary this year, fought to end apartheid and has dominated the political landscape since then. But it has been paralyzed by internal fighting and is losing support among voters who are frustrated that it has failed to deliver on the promise of a post-apartheid government.
More than 55 percent of South Africans now live below the poverty line, Zuma said Thursday. Unemployment hovers close to 28 percent, disproportionately affecting the black majority. Many living in major cities don’t have access to regular electricity and water, and the public health and education systems are ailing. An international study released last week found that nearly 80 percent of South African students in Grade 4 couldn’t read at an appropriate level.
Zuma’s popularity has plummeted, his reputation damaged by the corruption allegations.