South Africa’s Jacob Zuma is gearing up his undeclared run for the presidency, using careful ”campaign appearances” to reach out to the public on crime, Aids and racial divisions, analysts say.
On Saturday, Zuma met the family of a murdered white florist and said it was time the government got serious about crime — echoing rising public outrage over the country’s sky-high rates.
Zuma was also photographed taking an Aids test, highlighting another crisis in which President Thabo Mbeki’s government has frequently been accused of lacking in leadership.
Political analysts say Zuma’s carefully scripted manoeuvres were his most overt moves to date to establish his candidacy for leadership of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), which will meet in December to select a successor to Mbeki.
That person will almost certainly become South Africa’s next president in 2009.
”He is definitely campaigning, although of course he would deny it,” said Aubrey Matshiqi, a political analyst at the Centre for Policy Studies.
”Mbeki is seen to be out of touch with the ordinary person’s feelings about crime, but Zuma is projecting himself as a candidate who is sensitive to ordinary people.”
Zuma, once the frontrunner to become South Africa’s next president, has had a tough couple of years that saw him mired in both a corruption scandal and a rape case.
He was sacked as Mbeki’s deputy president after he was implicated in the graft trial of a former adviser, and was later hit with charges linked to a controversial state arms deal.
That case was thrown out in court. But prosecutors say they may re-file charges, which could seriously damage any hopes he has of becoming South Africa’s next leader.
In the meantime, he was acquitted of raping an HIV-positive family friend, but only after an embarrassing trial that saw him pilloried for ignorance on HIV/Aids and criticised for sexism.
Despite this Zuma — who has in the past said that he is the victim of a shadowy political conspiracy — has retained his post as deputy president of the ANC, where he continues to enjoy widespread grassroots appeal.
Popular appeal
Matshiqi said Zuma’s heightened profile comes ahead of an ANC agenda-setting conference expected in June.
Already likely to win the backing of left-leaning ANC allies, such as the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Zuma’s campaign may pick up steam if he can keep himself in the public eye.
Zuma’s candidacy will rise or fall on the votes of about 3 000 ANC members who elect the next party leader in December, not on his popular appeal as a candidate.
But analysts say he is staking out a campaign platform that may win support both inside and outside the party, where Mbeki’s often inflexible leadership has drawn quiet criticism.
”He is … being careful to select issues that appeal across the country,” said Sipho Seephe, a political analyst and academic director at Henley Management College.
Zuma struck a much more sympathetic note on crime than have many top officials, who often depict South Africa’s crime problem as based chiefly on perception, white fear and a sensationalist media.
”No one should live in fear in this country,” Zuma said. ”We should not debate if crime is, or is not, getting worse. We should be working at it with all urgency.”
Zuma also sought to dispel his earlier embarrassment over HIV/Aids by submitting to a public Aids test — something Mbeki has never done despite South Africa having one of the worst Aids crises in the world.
Zuma did not reveal the results, but in the past has said he is HIV negative. — Reuters