Zunami hits South Africa

POLOKWANE – The newly elected leader of South Africa’s ruling party rose to power on the backs of trade unionists, communists and the poor.

The challenge now is to satisfy his supporters without sacrificing the nation’s economy. The flamboyant Jacob Zuma, whose political career somehow has survived sex and corruption scandals, routed President Thabo Mbeki to win the presidency of the African National Congress at a divisive party convention on Tuesday.Zuma loyalists also won all other top party posts.This puts Zuma on track to become the next leader of South Africa in 2009, when the constitution requires Mbeki stand down, but also burdens him with a weighty agenda of priorities drawn up by the people who ensured his success.”The new leaders have a huge responsibility to mend the ANC, tackle the scourge of unemployment, poverty, inequality, HIV-AIDS and many others,” said Frans Baleni, leader of the National Union of Mineworkers.Zuma has been careful to make no promises and his first official pronouncements as ANC president, expected today, are much anticipated, both by ordinary people and investors in Africa’s largest economy.POWER AND POVERTY The ANC wields unmatched power in South Africa, governing with little opposition since Nelson Mandela first led it to power in the first post-apartheid election, in 1994.But many in this population of 48 million have not enjoyed the fruits of black majority rule and have become disenchanted.The South African Institute of Race Relations recently released a study showing absolute poverty in South Africa has doubled since the ANC took power in 1994.Some 25 million South Africans live well below the poverty line, unemployment, which feeds crime and poverty, has grown to 27 or 40 per cent depending on whom you talk to, and the country has the world’s highest number of AIDS victims and one of its highest rates of murder and rape.In a statement yesterday the South African Communist Party, whose national chairman was elected to the ANC governing council on Zuma’s slate on Tuesday, hailed the outcome of the party elections and called on leaders to address “the underlying challenges of our society …poverty, unemployment, deepening inequality”.Zuma’s election “is extremely important for Cosatu and for every South African who wants fundamental change,” said Zwelinzima Vavi, secretary general of Zuma’s most powerful ally, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, or Cosatu.Cosatu has called for the nationalisation of basic industries and moving faster to redistribute land to the poor.Such demands from Zuma’s allies make business leaders fearful despite Zuma’s assurances that he plans no radical change from the more conservative policies espoused by Mbeki, which produced an economic boom and have seen a small black elite spring up, but whose benefits have not trickled down.Zuma’s supporters say there would be a different emphasis, but not a policy overhaul.”I think there won’t be much change, only that he will concentrate more on the youth and the poor, who are those who suffer most from AIDS and unemployment,” said Honoured Shobede, a delegate at the conference who is a municipal administrator.’JACOB’S CROSS’ Ibrahim Fakir, an analyst at the independent Centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg, said Zuma “will find it very difficult to keep his promise to the poor because South Africa does not have the environment for rapid economic growth and job creation”.What is needed, according to Marian Tupy of the Cato Institute in Washington D.C., is labour reform giving the private sector freedom to hire and fire, a liberalisation that would be strongly opposed by trade unions.”Zuma will find (job creation) very difficult to do because he is beholden to Cosatu for the presidency,” Tupy said.Political analyst Adam Habib of the University of Johannesburg argued Mbeki’s government already has moved toward greater investment in health and social welfare, and that Zuma has only so much freedom to meet the demands of those who supported him.”Firstly, you pay back those that you can in the framework of the policy agendas that are feasible,” Habib said.”Then, like all good politicians, you forget about the others.That is what Mbeki did and that will happen if Jacob Zuma were to become president.Soon, he said, Zuma would confront “the same dilemmas, the same contradictions”.Nampa-AP * Associated Press Writer Celean Jacobson contributed to this report from Polokwane.The flamboyant Jacob Zuma, whose political career somehow has survived sex and corruption scandals, routed President Thabo Mbeki to win the presidency of the African National Congress at a divisive party convention on Tuesday.Zuma loyalists also won all other top party posts.This puts Zuma on track to become the next leader of South Africa in 2009, when the constitution requires Mbeki stand down, but also burdens him with a weighty agenda of priorities drawn up by the people who ensured his success.”The new leaders have a huge responsibility to mend the ANC, tackle the scourge of unemployment, poverty, inequality, HIV-AIDS and many others,” said Frans Baleni, leader of the National Union of Mineworkers.Zuma has been careful to make no promises and his first official pronouncements as ANC president, expected today, are much anticipated, both by ordinary people and investors in Africa’s largest economy.POWER AND POVERTY The ANC wields unmatched power in South Africa, governing with little opposition since Nelson Mandela first led it to power in the first post-apartheid election, in 1994.But many in this population of 48 million have not enjoyed the fruits of black majority rule and have become disenchanted. The South African Institute of Race Relations recently released a study showing absolute poverty in South Africa has doubled since the ANC took power in 1994.Some 25 million South Africans live well below the poverty line, unemployment, which feeds crime and poverty, has grown to 27 or 40 per cent depending on whom you talk to, and the country has the world’s highest number of AIDS victims and one of its highest rates of murder and rape.In a statement yesterday the South African Communist Party, whose national chairman was elected to the ANC governing council on Zuma’s slate on Tuesday, hailed the outcome of the party elections and called on leaders to address “the underlying challenges of our society …poverty, unemployment, deepening inequality”.Zuma’s election “is extremely important for Cosatu and for every South African who wants fundamental change,” said Zwelinzima Vavi, secretary general of Zuma’s most powerful ally, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, or Cosatu.Cosatu has called for the nationalisation of basic industries and moving faster to redistribute land to the poor.Such demands from Zuma’s allies make business leaders fearful despite Zuma’s assurances that he plans no radical change from the more conservative policies espoused by Mbeki, which produced an economic boom and have seen a small black elite spring up, but whose benefits have not trickled down.Zuma’s supporters say there would be a different emphasis, but not a policy overhaul.”I think there won’t be much change, only that he will concentrate more on the youth and the poor, who are those who suffer most from AIDS and unemployment,” said Honoured Shobede, a delegate at the conference who is a municipal administrator.’JACOB’S CROSS’ Ibrahim Fakir, an analyst at the independent Centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg, said Zuma “will find it very difficult to keep his promise to the poor because South Africa does not have the environment for rapid economic growth and job creation”.What is needed, according to Marian Tupy of the Cato Institute in Washington D.C., is labour reform giving the private sector freedom to hire and fire, a liberalisation that would be strongly opposed by trade unions.”Zuma will find (job creation) very difficult to do because he is beholden to Cosatu for the presidency,” Tupy said.Political analyst Adam Habib of the University of Johannesburg argued Mbeki’s government already has moved toward greater investme
nt in health and social welfare, and that Zuma has only so much freedom to meet the demands of those who supported him.”Firstly, you pay back those that you can in the framework of the policy agendas that are feasible,” Habib said.”Then, like all good politicians, you forget about the others.That is what Mbeki did and that will happen if Jacob Zuma were to become president.Soon, he said, Zuma would confront “the same dilemmas, the same contradictions”.Nampa-AP * Associated Press Writer Celean Jacobson contributed to this report from Polokwane.