South Africa’s governing African National Congress political party will return to where it was first formed to fight apartheid a century ago to pick its next leader, at a time some believe the movement is struggling to regain its moral high ground.
Some 4,000 delegates will gather at its Mangaung conference, being held in the city also known as Bloemfontein, to choose whether President Jacob Zuma or his quiet, unionist deputy should helm the party. Whoever is picked will likely be in line to be the next president of this nation of 50 million people, leading Africa’s top economy into an uncertain future where all now have a right to vote, but don’t have access to the country’s wealth.
The run-up to the conference has seen disrupted provincial meetings, threats and shootings of local ANC officials, as corruption allegations trail from the smallest local government to Zuma at the top. That has many wondering whether the ANC still remains the party of reconciliation and racial fellowship that icon Nelson Mandela and others envisioned.
“The ANC ... has become an unfamiliar, predatory beast that appears intent on devouring its leaders in an orgy of greed, corruption and cronyism,” a front-page editorial published Friday by South Africa’s The Times newspaper warned. “It does not have to be like this.”
Becoming leader of the ANC means a nearly automatic ticket to becoming the president in post-apartheid South Africa. Opposition parties don’t garner the widespread support given to the ANC. By tradition, the party’s president will become the nation’s president, if the ANC wins national elections in 2014, and its deputy president will serve in the same national office.
Mr. Zuma, 70, remains the favourite heading into the conference after winning the nominations in most provincial ANC polls. He has wide support among Zulus, South Africa’s largest ethnic group, as well as from a loyal cadre of government and party officials.
But many in the public have grown disenchanted with Mr. Zuma, who former President Thabo Mbeki fired as deputy president in 2005 after he was implicated in the corruption trial of close friend and financial adviser Schabir Shaik over a 1999 arms deal. Newspapers have written numerous articles recently about the millions of dollars of government-paid improvements made to Mr. Zuma’s private homestead. Mr. Zuma has also faced accusations, by the media, of being unable to manage his personal finances and relying on friends and colleagues to bail him out, including, allegedly, Mr. Mandela himself.
