The Financial Times has a story that points to some disturbing features of South African politics:
It is the kind of fervent devotion that has driven a wave of support for the former president [Jacob Zuma] ahead of a critical general election on May 29. Yet as recently as January, the 82-year-old African National Congress veteran appeared to have been cast into the political wilderness after he was suspended from the party he once helmed for launching “vitriolic attacks” against the leadership and backing a rival one.
So Zuma was a highly corrupt and semi-authoritarian president, who retired in disgrace. And now he’s launching a comeback at an age when most people are retired? And he’s launching “vitriolic attacks” against the establishment?
Zuma’s candidacy is being challenged over a criminal conviction and South Africa’s highest court has been asked to hear the matter. But that has simply fuelled his supporters, who have previously rioted on Zuma’s behalf and say the current charges are politically motivated. Some analysts fear Zuma may seek to discredit the electoral process if he is unable to contest.
Wait, he’s launching a comeback despite a political conviction? And his supporters rioted on his behalf? And people fear Zuma may try to discredit the election process? What’s wrong with Africa?
Zakhele Ndlovu, a politics lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said Zuma’s appeal was primarily based on his image as a defender of the Zulu nation. This also played on a stereotype that many top ANC leaders have been Xhosas, South Africa’s second-biggest ethnic group.
You mean he appeals to his own ethnic group, and demonizes minorities? That’s horrible.
Jabulani Mkhize, who was one of those out canvassing for Zuma’s party in Durban’s informal settlement of Cato Crest on a hot afternoon this month, said “lives were better” when the former president ran South Africa.
“Zuma was a better president in terms of economic transformation . . . I’m talking about simple things, like even the bread was cheaper,” he said
Sure, things were mostly better. But are South African voters so stupid that they don’t understand that in the last few years of his administration Zuma put in place “populist” policies that pushed South Africa down to the road to ruin? Do they actually believe that his policies had nothing to do with the current inflation?
Zuma is no stranger to using court battles as political platforms, given his many years of fighting corruption allegations. . . . “He plays the victim card in the same way that so many populists play the victim card around the world,” said Richard Calland, a public law professor at the University of Cape Town.
The victim card? That’s unworthy of a great nation like South Africa. Africa’s most developed economy. That’s the sort of thing you’d expect in a banana republic. Perhaps Africans cannot handle democracy?