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South Africa's ANC elects firebrand Jacob Zuma
The controversial leader is now on course to become the nation's next president in 2009.
By Danna Harman | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitorposted December 18, 2007 at 4:30 p.m. EST
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Johannesburg, South Africa - It's a remarkable comeback.
In 2005, he was accused of corruption and sacked from his job as deputy president. In 2006, the daughter of an old friend, a woman half his age who is diagnosed as HIV positive, accused him of rape. And now, in the final days of 2007, he is in position to become South Africa's next president.
Delegates of the African National Congress – the vaunted party of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela – overwhelmingly voted controversial firebrand Jacob Zuma in as its new leader Tuesday at a party conference in the northern city of Polokwane.
Mr. Zuma received 2,329 votes, ahead of South African President Thabo Mbeki's 1,505 votes, following one of the most divisive campaigns the traditionally unified party has ever seen.
Because the ANC controls nearly 70 percent of the vote, Zuma's win means he is almost certain to be nominated and emerge victorious in presidential elections scheduled for 2009.
As the pro-Zuma delegates wildly cheered the results, waving arms and banners in the air, Zuma took the stage in a leather jacket and baseball cap, a wide smile on his face, to thank his supporters.
"This is a proud moment for out country," said Dino Ngwala, a cabinet maker in Johannesburg, upon hearing the news. "Someone who truly understands and cares for the people has been chosen."
Comeback kid
Born on a farm in the eastern province of Kawzulu-Natal, Zuma is a man who has known and overcome hardship. His father died when he was three and his mother, who worked as a housekeeper, could not afford to keep him in school. He worked odd jobs and joined the ANC at age 17, soon after getting arrested for trying to overthrow the apartheid government.
Zuma spent his 20s incarcerated on Robben Island, alongside Mr. Mandela and others, biding his time and learning to read and write before being released a decade later.
The man known here as "JZ" then spent 12 years in exile in surrounding African countries, eventually becoming the ANC's intelligence chief and later, when the ban on the ANC was lifted in 1990, took on a long list of other positions within the party.
In 1999, his longtime comrade President Mbeki appointed him deputy president of the country. It was neither a posting, nor a friendship, that would last.
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