South Africa
Man of the peopleMay 9th 2009
From Economist.com
Jacob Zuma, South Africa's new president, has many promises to keep
AFTER the
ANC’s landslide victory in April’s election, Jacob Zuma’s election as president was a
formality when on Wednesday May 6th parliament officially elected him to the top post. Three days later, on Saturday, 30,000 people, including
representatives from 29 governments, were expected to gather in
Pretoria, the capital, to attend his
inauguration.
It is still unclear what his presidency will mean for South Africa. So far, in terms of policy, he has been something of an
enigma. He fought this election as the champion of the poor and a man of the people, in contrast to his more
cerebral predecessor, Thabo Mbeki. He has even suggested setting up a hotline for the public to report
corruption directly to him. Mr Zuma has talked much of bringing the fruits of
liberation to South Africa’s poor. Now he has to get on with it.
Mr Zuma recently set out five
priorities: land
redistribution; education; health; the fight against crime; and finding decent work for all South Africans. He promised to be more hands-on and to work with his opponents.
But doubts remain. On May 1st Julius Malema, the head of the ANC's powerful Youth League, who has been accused of being one of Mr Zuma’s leading “
bully boys”, described Helen Zille, the head of the
opposition Democratic Alliance and new leader of the Western Cape province, who is white, as a “
racist little girl”. Such comments will make
co-operation more difficult.
After 15 years of
virtually unchallenged rule, the ANC stands accused of
corruption,
arrogance and
cronyism. Mr Zuma has not been
immune to this. Charges of corruption against him have been
dismissed on a legal
technicality but he has never been
acquitted of them. He
denies the
allegations and has
vowed to
stamp out corruption but, with the shadow of these charges still
lingering, it may be difficult for him to lead a campaign against it.
Though it won the election
convincingly, the ANC failed to win the two-thirds majority needed to change the
constitution. Some of Mr Zuma’s comments about the Constitutional Court have raised
eyebrows. After the ANC’s victory, he promised to defend the constitution. But only last month, he argued for a review of the court’s status, “because I don’t think we should have people who are almost like God in a democracy.” He may still be able to
browbeat enough parliamentarians from other, smaller parties into voting for any changes the ANC wishes to pass.
One of those expected to attend the
inauguration is Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe. South Africa’s policy towards its
desperate neighbour will be an important test for the new president. In the past, Mr Zuma has cast doubt upon Mr Mbeki’s policy of “
quiet diplomacy”, promising a tougher
stance. Recently, however, he has toned down his criticism and said that his approach would be the same as his predecessor’s.
Mr Zuma’s new
cabinet, which he is expected to appoint soon after his inauguration, should give some clues to his likely new direction. Businessmen will be pleased if he keeps Trevor Manuel as finance minister. Those who fear a lurch towards
populism will be
rattled if he appoints Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who has been
convicted of fraud and other crimes, to a post in government.
Another important test will be his policies on HIV/AIDS. At his trial three years ago for
rape, for which he was
acquitted, he
admitted having
unprotected sex with a woman he knew to be HIV-positive (though he then headed the National Aids Council), claiming that taking a shower afterwards would protect him. Under Mr Mbeki, South Africa’s HIV/AIDS policies were, until a few years ago,
disastrous. It will be a challenge for Mr Zuma to push policy along the right track.
Mr Zuma takes power at a hard time. South Africa is
slipping into its first
recession in 17 years. Its strict banking
regulations have protected it somewhat from the global banking crisis but
unemployment is
soaring, mining and manufacturing are declining and property prices have suffered their
steepest drop since 1986.
So Mr Zuma will have less money to play with. That will make his promises of free health care and education harder to
deliver. After his election victory, Mr Zuma proclaimed “a new era of hope”. In early June he will outline his
programme for this new era in a state-of-the-union speech. He has raised great expectations for change among the country’s poor black majority.
http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13635713