South Africa’s ruling African National Congress meet this weekend to elect a new party leader. By most accounts, it seems that Jacob Zuma will usurp (sitting President) Thabo Mbeki, an event which might prompt an early call for national elections.
Zuma is sullied by several corruption allegations, as well as a recent rape charge (for which he was acquitted). The BBC reports that Archbishop Tutu, one of South Africa’s most powerful moral voices, said delegates should “not choose someone of whom most of us would be ashamed”.
Worse, Zuma may as poor an advocate for AIDS as Mbeki. During his rape trial, Zuma admitted to having unprotected sex with his accuser but pointed out that he took a shower afterwards to cut the risk of contracting HIV.
Some estimates suggest that one in five South African adults is infected with HIV/AIDS.
On the other hand, Mark Gevisser writes in the New York Times that Zuma’s potential takeover is a sign of democratic progress:
But whatever happens, the fissure in the A.N.C. brings a long-overdue logic to South African politics. Since the early 1990s, the left and center have been held together by the skein of a joint struggle for freedom — and, of course, the allure of power. One of the best possible legacies of the current political turmoil would be the collapse of the de facto one-party state — and its replacement by a real choice for South African voters.
Already the split in the A.N.C. has opened up space for robust criticism of hitherto untouchable South African leaders. And it has forced a healthy challenge to the deathtrap of African democracy: the ruler-for-life syndrome.
Gone, too, is that beguiling myth of the Mandela era: that the A.N.C. is a cathedral of morality. The truth is that it is a rowdy hall of competing interests, driven by patronage and riven by personality, grubby with politics. It is no longer a liberation movement but the ruling party of a young and healthy — messy and unpredictable — democracy.
