December 14 to December 20

Four questions for Zuma

I don’t see Jacob Zuma as having the characteristics needed to lead us, both in the ANC and the country. Imagine newspapers across the world flashing the headline ”President of South Africa arrested for fraud and tax evasion”.

Our economy would feel the pinch — no wonder he has been telling business that everything will be well once he ascends to the throne.

The December issue of Finweek raised the alarm, saying that ”the biggest immediate danger ­facing South Africa’s economy and investment environment is the inevitable weakening of the South African risk rating that will result from such a drastic political change”.

The public has found Zuma supporters to be pugnacious and arrogant, in particular Fikile ­Mbalula and Zwelinzima Vavi.

Business Day columnist Xolela Mangcu raised four questions about a Zuma presidency: he must allay our concern about corruption; assure us he is not embittered by his trials and tribulations; not be beholden to his backers; and demonstrate that his attack on intellectuals and analysts will not lead to intolerance.

I strongly share Mangcu’s sentiments. A Zuma presidency has every prospect of ostracising certain members of the ANC, as well as intellectuals and analysts. — Xola Moni, King William’s Town

Zweli Mkhize (Comment & Analysis, December 7) pretends to be factual, but merely sings Zuma’s praises. One does not need to be a genius to figure out that his attack on ”aloof and self-righteous” leaders is a veiled reference to Thabo Mbeki.

In fact, the ANC needs a leader who can lead by example, be accountable to the people, who is a visionary and someone from whom the whole country can draw inspiration and optimism.

Whether he or she can woo the crowd with his or her singing prowess is not a factor. Whether that person is a good dancer won’t put food on the table for hungry orphans in the rural areas of GaSekhukhune or Mahlabathini. — Hlabangwane wa Hlabangwane, Durban

The ANC members going to Limpopo must remember that they will decide the future of all of us and our children ­— and that the majority who voted for ANC are not ANC members. — Lamyeni Majiyezi

Re Ferial Haffajee’s interview in the M&G’s last edition (”We won’t topple Mbeki”) — oh dear, things are looking mo and mo shaiky. — Wendy Annecke, Muizenberg, Cape Town

The choice is a catch-22: Mbeki, the distant emperor, or Zuma, the populist.

Zuma talks the talk to all sides: Afrikaners, business people, foreign investors, tripartite partners. His Aids/sex comments during his rape trial are too scary to forget. And he has corruption charges hanging over his head.

Mbeki is like a wounded, arrogant ruler from an ivory tower, whose behaviour creates a stronger Zuma every day. He uses state organs and ministers to do his dirty laundry.

The sky has some seriously dark clouds, whichever way it goes.— Theo Martinez, Blairgowrie, Johannesburg

Your description of George Friedman (”Zuma’s shady friends”, December 7) as being of uncertain reputation does a disservice to him.

I have been a subscriber to his analysis service for years and have found his opinions to be outstanding and well reasoned. If that is the kind of ”’shady” friend that has been attracted to Zuma, he is in excellent company! — Donald Bens, Johannesburg

My concern is that nobody has given credible reasons for their nominations. It is not good enough to elect someone because you feel he has been badly done by or is a ”good chap”.

Where are the plans for better governance and to cut corruption? Where are the plans for halting rampant crime? Where are the plans to cut back on the unmitigated greed of the super-rich and distribute more evenly to the poor?

If I, as a non-ANC member, am expected to vote for the ANC, I must see a leader I can respect. — Katherine Hayes

The ANC Women’s League is right: in the matter of leadership, it is not gender that counts but who is most capable of delivering to the poor and marginalised. — Tshepo Lefera

Mbeki has done a lot for this country and Africa and is being vilified by those who see him as a stumbling-block to their selfish interests. — Mongamo Dlulemnyango, Pretoria

If Zuma is elected president, it will be disastrous for the future of South Africa and Africa — and an embarrassing indictment on the choices of South African people. — Dr Oehley, New Zealand

Mbeki suggests that no one else in the leadership of the ANC is capable of leading the party and the state. If this is not an insult, it is certainly paternalism.

When he succeeded Nelson Mandela, the leadership succession system was that the leader of the party became the head of state. Why must that process now change? Or has this one man, who has centralised power for the past nine years, become the party’s sole brain, so that if he steps down, the party leader­ship loses direction?

It is time for others to lead. Mbeki has overstayed his welcome. If he does not leave now, when it is time to do so, the presidency will become his permanent throne.

We might end up reinstating a monarchy if we are not careful enough to oppose some leaders and their approach to leadership. — Rudzani Mudau, Roodepoort

In any organisation made of thinking individuals rather than automatons, there are bound to be differences.

In its 95-year history the ANC has faced many contradictions and accumulated a lot of wisdom about how to handle these. At times its very existence was threatened.

In 1969, when the ANC met in Morogoro, Tanzania, some of us who were delegates were not sure if the ANC as ”we knew it” would resolve a major contradiction between the so-called nationalists and those who stuck to the ideals of the Freedom Charter.

In the middle of the conference acting president OR Tambo offered to resign. There was shocked silence in the hall as we drifted to our ­sleeping quarters.

In 1985 the second ANC consultative conference was held in Kabwe. Again the movement faced major contradictions that it had to resolve to avoid imploding. After discussing the way forward in light of the emergence in 1983 of the UDF and the labour movement and the issue of factionalism, especially involving the ultra-left, the final communiqué issued a clarion call:

”We feel sure that all those dele­gates who will attend will go there with one central issue uppermost in their minds: that out of this congress the ANC will emerge far stronger than ever before. Unity is the rock on which the ANC was founded; it is the principle which has guided us down the years as we feel our way forward.

”In the course of its history the ANC has survived storms and risen to eminence partly because of the sterling qualities of its membership and partly because each member has regarded himself or herself as the principal guardian of that unity.

”All discussions and criticism have generally been balanced and constructive and, above all, they have been invariably subjected to the overriding principle of maximum unity. To lose sight of this basic principle is to sell our birthright, to betray those who paid the highest price so that the ANC should flourish and triumph.” — Professor Bernard Magubane

What Mugabe is hiding

Sarudzai Gumbo (7) was lying alone in a dirty room in a Harare hospital, blind in one eye, her head a mass of septic wounds. She screamed with pain when we tried to remove her filthy, blood-stained hat. She weighed only 16kg.

The Times highlighted her plight in March after discovering her in Mbare, a Harare slum. Her family was living on a wasteland after their home was destroyed by President Robert Mugabe’s Operation Murambatsvina. Her parents’ livelihoods had been ruined by the regime’s ban on street vendors. They and Sarudzai had Aids.

Readers sent £7 500 to the Jesuit mission in Mbare to help her and she was transferred to Parirenyatwa hospital just as Zimbabwe’s healthcare system was imploding.

As with every other hospital, the doctors and nurses left in droves for better-paid jobs abroad. There are no anaesthetics, drips, painkillers, antiretrovirals, blood for transfusions or bandages. This is a place where patients are left to die.

We had Sarudzai examined by a private doctor and within hours she was admitted to a private hospital. She has been adopted by the charity Kidzcan, but her chances of survival are slim.

Sarudzai is one of millions of victims of Mugabe’s pernicious regime who will be largely overlooked as the octogenarian autocrat enjoys the propaganda triumph of being greeted as a legitimate national leader at the EU-Africa summit in Lisbon. — Martin Fletcher

Easy targets

The article on the shooting at an Omaha mall (M&G Online, December 6) notes that the shooting is unlikely to result in a review of American firearm laws.

It does not note that the mall is a gun-free zone and that all other recent American mass killings have been committed in disarmament zones.

Gun-free zones are making life more dangerous for the law-abiding and easier for criminals.

It is disturbing, then, that certain groups are pushing these easy-­victim zones in South Africa.

Significantly, there has been a rash of attacks in the Table Mountain National Park, South Africa’s best-known gun-free zone. — Wayne Meyer, Die Hoewes

Iran not out of the woods

The findings of the United States National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which states ”with high confidence” that Iran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, clearly represent a major setback for those arguing for military intervention in Iran.

We should be glad that this intelligence on the absence of weapons of mass destruction has surfaced now, rather than being discovered after an attack, as in Iraq. But we should not think this will necessarily deter those intent on military intervention.

While the NIE report does not fit the Bush/Cheney plan to build a case for intervention, it could still be used to their advantage. The report’s claims that Iran once had a nuclear weapons programme could be used to justify predictions that the programme will be resurrected.

The report’s claims should be treated with scepticism. And debates around hypothetical timelines should not be allowed to distract the world from the important task of defusing a dangerous standoff between those intent on war and an Iranian government determined not to back down from its legitimate right to enrichment.

The most reliable source of intelligence is surely the International Atomic Energy Association, which accurately assessed Iraq’s WDM capacity in 2003 and continues to conduct exhaustive inspections on all Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites.

In 3 000 hours of inspections, it has found no evidence that the country has diverted its nuclear programme for military purposes. — Stefan Simanowitz, Brighton, UK

Unfair to Everite

The Mail & Guardian’s coverage of the claim that asbestos cement was found at the Delft TRA housing project (November 30) was unfair to my client, Everite. The M&G has a right and duty to report on allegations contained in a high court application, but the article left readers with the impression that, notwithstanding faint denials, Everite cynically supplied asbestos cement under the label of non-asbestos products.

This is untrue, unbalanced reporting. Sufficient material was given to your journalist to show there was no truth to these allegations. She should have redrafted the article when she received confirmation from Jim Phillips of the National Institute for Occupational Health that the sample carrying Everite’s logo was asbestos-free.

Everite stopped using asbestos in December 2002 and any claims to the contrary are mischievous and probably actionable. — Brian Gibson, adviser to Everite on asbestos and health issues

In brief

Pearlie Joubert’s heart-wrenching story on her childhood friend Elizabeth Jacobs was brilliant (December 6). It made me think: while ego-driven politicians live out their greed and hatred with fanfare in public, ordinary people battle through their brave little lives ­anonymously. Thank you, Pearlie, for opening a window on the suffering of the humble and voiceless. — Herman Lategan, Cape Town

Knowing it was running out of surplus capacity, why did Eskom continue to market cheap electricity so aggressively to industry? It even shut down municipal power stations by offering the municipalities cheaper electricity than they could generate themselves. It knocked out other competition, until there was no more surplus left! — Fabio, Durban

Having condemned Eugene de Kock for his apartheid crimes as a convenient scapegoat for his military and political bosses — who today enjoy their well-earned pensions — it now seems political writers can hang the crimes of other ex-security policemen around his neck. His protests against this are apparently considered an attempt to violate freedom of speech. — Ana Santos, Seapoint, Cape Town

In its ministers’ report card the DA gave Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka a seven, one point ahead of the Finance Minister Trevor Manuel. This is ridiculous. Didn’t she spend a fortune in taxpayers’ rands on a holiday in Dubai? The female-led DA is toadying to the highest-ranking woman in government. — Frank Hartrey, Kingsburgh