Word: mbeki
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...failure of South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki to be reelected leader of the African National Congress is a dramatic indicator of how far the ruling party's leadership has strayed from its liberation struggle roots. In a stunning repudiation of the Mbeki era, the man who succeeded Nelson Mandela at the helm of the organization won the support of only 39% of the 3,900 delegates to the party congress, compared with 60% for the populist former Deputy President Jacob Zuma. And this while Zuma, 65, still faces corruption charges in the South African courts. The result leaves President...
...Zuma, to be sure, is hardly an ideal leader. Mbeki sacked him as Deputy President in 2005 after his financial adviser was convicted of corruption over an arms deal with a French company, and last week the Directorate of Special Operations filed papers in the Constitutional Court expanding similar charges against Zuma himself. And in 2006, he was in court again, acquitted on a rape charge, although his testimony nonetheless revealed questionable attitudes on sex, including an admission that he had unprotected sex with a woman he knew to be HIV positive...
...Zuma's victory may be less a result of his own appeal as a candidate than it is is testament to the ire that President Thabo Mbeki arouses among the ANC rank and file. Discipline, once a hallmark of the organization in its days as an underground guerrilla movement, was in scant evidence at a conference whose delegates appeared to be in a state of open revolt, booing and whistling at Mbeki during his opening speech, drowning out Mbeki allies by singing songs in support of Zuma, and delaying the leadership vote for two days in arguments over procedure. Mbeki...
...Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of South Africa's most powerful moral voices, weighed in on Friday in an interview with the Mail & Guardian newspaper, in which he expressed distaste for the bitter personal rivalry between Mbeki and Zuma. "Why are we only concentrating on those two only?" he asked. "I have a deep sense of unease. The nation is in distress and needs a political leader who cares for them and makes them feel as though they matter...
...Victory for Zuma would cap a remarkable comeback for a man who was last year acquitted of raping a family friend half his age. In a last ditch pre-conference appeal for support, Mbeki said: "The eyes of our people and others in the rest of Africa and the rest of the world will focus on our conference. [Delegates] should fully understand the great responsibility they carry on their shoulders. Each and every decision they take...will be felt long after the...conference...