Jacob Zuma dans la presse
Sud-africaine (en langue anglaise): "Zuma is new ANC president / Zuma
is chosen to lead African National Congress / Mandela clan backs Zuma"
1) Zuma
is new ANC president
Riaan Wolmarans, Matthew Burbidge
and Sapa | Polokwane, South Africa
Mail & Guardian Online, 18
December 2007 07:59
Jacob Zuma is the new president of
the African National Congress. The announcement was greeted by an outpouring of
joy and ecstatic cheering by ANC delegates at the party's conference in
Polokwane shortly before 9pm on Tuesday. Thabo Mbeki received 1 505 votes and
Zuma 2 329.
A display of fireworks greeted Zuma's ascension outside the
main conference marquee and some delegates poured out of the tent and into the
drizzling rain.
The position of deputy president went to current
secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe, who received 2 346 votes against the 1 444
votes gained by his opponent, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
As the outcome of
each voted position was announced, thousands of delegates blew on whistles,
danced on tables and chairs, and sang and cheered -- despite being asked to wait
until after the announcement before applauding.
Each newly appointed
leader took up a seat on the empty stage -- from where the outgoing national
executive committee (NEC) had earlier exited -- to even louder cheering from the
audience.
Maria Mabaso of KwaZulu-Natal, smiling broadly and cheering,
told the Mail & Guardian Online: "I'm so happy. Everything is going
to change because Zuma cares about the people."
Emile Louis Enock of
Kwazulu-Natal said: "I am very pleased. Trade unions will have a voice
now."
An elderly lady from the North West, who preferred to remain
anonymous, simply said: "I cannot complain. I am a staunch ANC
member."
National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete becomes national
chairperson with 2 326 votes, edging out Joel Netshitenzhe who received 1 475
votes.
The position of secretary general went to Gwede Mantashe with 2
378 votes, beating Mosiuoa Lekota, who had 1 432 votes.
The post of
treasurer general went to Mathews Phosa with 2 320 votes, beating deputy
president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka with 1 374 votes.
Thandi Modise, with 2
304 votes is the new deputy secretary general. She beat Thoko Didiza, who
received 1 455 votes.
After these results were announced, the conference
proceeded to accept nominations from the rest of the floor for the remaining 80
NEC members to be chosen. Voting for these members would start on Wednesday
morning.
Also reacting to Zuma's election, Andries Moagi from Limpopo,
who had voted for Mbeki, said: "Part of the values of the ANC is to applaud,
value and support whoever is in the ANC leadership. You don't judge leaders as
individuals but as a collective, and I will support the new collective of
leaders."
'Polokwane bodes ill'
Meanwhile, the Democratic
Alliance (DA) expressed dismay at Zuma's election as president.
"This is
a dismal day for the ANC and for South Africa," DA leader Helen Zille said in a
statement made available after the announcement. "It is an indictment on the
ruling party that they could find no better candidate than Jacob Zuma to lead
them."
Zille said the Polokwane conference had exposed many of Zuma's
supporters as unruly and ill-disciplined populists who could not observe the
basic norms of decent, democratic behaviour. "These are the people to whom Zuma
owes his election as ANC president and he will have to return the favour. He
will be accountable to them."
Zille said the ANC will now be held hostage
by populists and left-wingers, leaving a growing vacuum at the centre of South
African politics.
Zuma had carefully avoided making any policy
pronouncements during his campaign for the ANC presidency, she said. "But we
know he has reactionary views on gender issues and that he has surrounded
himself with dubious advisers. This is unlikely to change."
She added:
"If ANC members behave in this appalling way during their own electoral
conference, what can we expect from them when the ANC is challenged for power at
the polls in an open election for government of the country?
"Polokwane
bodes ill for the future. It is now essential that all fair-minded democrats
stand together to prevent the Zuma-fication of the ANC becoming the
Zuma-fication of South Africa."
'Historic victory'
The election
of Zuma as ANC president is of historic importance, former state president FW de
Klerk.
"The decision is of historic importance to South Africa since it
will have a major impact on the leadership of the country for the next five to
12 years," De Klerk said a statement. "The key to success will be our ability to
abide by the Constitution and the national accord that it represents."
He
welcomed a commitment that Zuma made last week to "uphold our Constitution and
ensure that organs of state do not abuse our rights" and voiced agreement with a
statement by Zuma that some should not have more rights than others in South
Africa.
Zuma's undertaking to maintain the country's macro-economic
policies was also to be welcomed.
De Klerk added: "Mbeki's place in
history is assured: it rests firmly on 13 years of economic and social progress;
the consolidation of our constitutional democracy and the promotion of peace,
unity and human dignity in Africa."
'Witch-hunt'
The South
African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) was on Tuesday night quick to call
for the criminal investigation regarding Zuma to be abandoned.
"We
believe the National Prosecuting Authority's [NPA] matter against Zuma is a
witch-hunt," said Sanco national organising secretary Sello Molefe. "Today the
NPA has this story; tomorrow they have a totally new one."
Zuma still
faces the possibility of the NPA taking him back to court on corruption
charges.
The charges, thrown out of court last year without a hearing,
centre on his relationship with businessman and fraud convict Schabir Shaik, who
was found guilty in 2005 of soliciting an arms-company bribe for Zuma and jailed
for an effective 15 years.
President Thabo Mbeki sacked Zuma as deputy
president of the country soon after the Shaik verdict.
'Privilege and
responsibility'
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) extended its
congratulations to Zuma.
"It is a great privilege and responsibility to
lead the organisation once led by the likes of Inkosi Albert Luthuli and Nelson
Mandela," said IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
The IFP knows the tasks
ahead of Zuma are "enormous" and it wishes him well, Buthelezi said in a
statement.
2) Zuma
is chosen to lead African National Congress
By Michael Wines - International
Herald Teribune
Jacob Zuma, a popular Zulu
politician, won over Thabo Mbeki, the president of South Africa, to become the
party's new leader, despite an ambiguous plan for the country and a continuing
corruption scandal that has dogged him for years.
POLOKWANE, South Africa,
Wednesday,
December 19, 2007 : The African National Congress chose
the Zulu politician Jacob Zuma as its new leader on Tuesday, handing South
Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, a resounding defeat.
After three days of furious
politicking at a national conference here, the ANC's 3,900 delegates voted to
oust Mbeki as head of the party and award the job to Zuma, whose popularity has
surged despite facing corruption and rape charges last
year.
Mbeki, who led the party for 10
years and the nation for more than 8, won fewer than 4 in 10
votes.
Zuma now becomes the prohibitive
favorite to succeed Mbeki as president when Mbeki's second term ends in early
2009. But he faces at least one daunting hurdle: a continuing corruption
investigation that has dogged him much of this decade and seems likely to lead
to another round of criminal charges soon.
If Zuma were charged and convicted,
he would be ineligible for the national presidency under South Africa's
Constitution. The mere filing of new charges would be likely to set off a long
stretch of political turmoil until the case against Zuma was
resolved.
Neither that prospect nor Zuma's
considerable other political baggage — the unsuccessful rape prosecution and the
conviction of a Durban businessman on charges of bribing Zuma when he was deputy
president — stopped the party's delegates from electing him and his slate of
senior ANC candidates.
The announcement of the vote caused
pandemonium at the conference, held in a vast white tent at the University of
Limpopo under a constant summer drizzle.
The mood of Zuma's supporters was
captured in a single gesture by much of the crowd — two hands, rotating over
each other like bicycle pedals. Soccer coaches use it to signal players to leave
the field for a substitute, and thousands of delegates directed it at Mbeki
throughout the conference.
Mbeki, a skilled technocrat, has run
South Africa's government and economy with admirable efficiency, analysts and
politicians say. But he was accused of shutting lower party officials out of
decision making, being intolerant of dissent and — most seriously — ignoring the
party's powerful left wing, which wants more money and attention given to the
nation's vast underclass and the working poor.
An alliance of left-leaning trade
unions, communists and the rural poor made Zuma its standard-bearer, and it
surprised many by scooping up the support of delegates even in regions under
Mbeki's nominal control.
"People are sick and tired," Sipho
Seepe, a political analyst, columnist and Mbeki critic. "They're saying 'no' to
this fellow. They have to send a clear and unambiguous
message."
The message to Mbeki may have been
unmistakable, but Zuma's own plans for South Africa remain opaque. What little
he has said and done has been ambiguous.
Alternately charming and prickly,
comfortable in a tailored suit or tribal dress, Zuma is arguably South Africa's
most adept politician. In eastern South Africa, where he helped broker an end to
guerrilla war in the early 1990s, he is idolized by his fellow Zulus, but he is
well-liked among other ethnic groups as well.
Zuma has built a reputation as a
populist and a champion of the poor against an unfeeling government — fertile
political soil in a nation with at least 25 percent unemployment and a yawning
wealth gap.
But as the scholar and political
analyst Xolela Mangcu said in a June speech, "There is nothing about his public
actions that suggests he is a populist, that he would return power to the
poor."
A moderate while in Mbeki's
government, Zuma tied his quiet campaigning for the ANC leadership to the South
African political left, which has called for the renationalization of basic
industries and guaranteed incomes for the poor.
Nevertheless, Zuma met privately in
recent weeks with foreign investors in the United States and Britain, apparently
to assure them that South Africa's economy would not become another Bolivia
under his rule.
Zuma has carefully sidestepped any
direct criticism of Mbeki, who dismissed him as deputy president in 2005 as
corruption allegations against him gained credence.
One veteran analyst of South African
politics, Steven Friedman, said Tuesday that critics who were casting Zuma's
populist rhetoric as a sign of radical change were
mistaken.
"The guy is personally problematic,
and he has a lot of questions to answer," Friedman said. "But this is a
mainstream figure who was a bosom buddy and close confidante of Thabo Mbeki.
He's not some wild man coming in from the hills to destroy the
palace."
3)
Mandela clan backs Zuma
by Mandy Rossouw
Mail & Guardian Online, 15
December 2007 11:59
Presidential hopeful and ANC deputy
president Jacob Zuma received a boost from the Mandela family this week as the
race to see who will be the next leader of the party and the country enters the
home stretch.
Although Nelson Mandela chose to keep mum throughout the
bitter succession battle, his former wife and grandson have come out in support
of a Zuma presidency for South Africa.
Former ANC Women’s League
president Winnie Madikizela-Mandela said on Wednesday that the status quo should
be retained, meaning President Thabo Mbeki should remain president of the ANC
while Zuma stays on as deputy president.
This will put Zuma in the prime
position to take over the national presidency.
Madikizela-Mandela
cemented this proposal by saying that the Polokwane conference should pass a
resolution ensuring that Zuma will be the “firm and assured” candidate nominated
by the ANC to become national president in 2009.
In a letter directed to
ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe she suggested a “solution” to the
on-going corruption investigation of Zuma, who might be charged next year.
She also proposed that of the top six ANC officials three should be
women, reflecting the gender parity resolution that will be discussed at the
conference.
The new national executive committee, to which
Madikizela-Mandela has been nominated, must reflect the diversity of opinions
and views of all sections of the movement.
Her plan to meet Mbeki and
Zuma had not materialised by Thursday and neither of the contenders had clear
plans to meet her before the conference.
Lobbyists for Mbeki said that
although “the chief will not refuse to meet Winnie”, her solution is “not
realistic or workable”.
“We’re going to the ballot, that thing of status
quo is out of the question.”
Zuma was in KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday and
will make only a pit-stop in Johannesburg before departing for
Polokwane.
He was due to visit the Mandela homestead in Mvezo outside
Mthatha on Tuesday, but it is believed that 30 minutes before he was due to
arrive Madiba’s personal assistant phoned his grandson and chief of the clan,
Mandla Mandela, to tell him not to host Zuma.
“They had made all the
preparations that we normally do when we have an important person coming over.
They were going to slaughter a sheep or a cow.
“But then Mandela’s
personal assistant phoned and said to Mandla Mandela he should not do it because
it would look as if Madiba was taking sides. Mandla Mandela did not take Zuma to
the homestead, but he did speak at the Engcobo rally organised by Zuma
supporters. He made it clear that he supported the branches of the area and they
support Zuma,” an ANC source said.
Madiba’s former director general,
Jakes Gerwel, insists that Mandla Mandela acted in his own right and not on
behalf of his grandfather.
“He [Madiba] is a little worried about the
lack of unity in the party, but he has full confidence that the party will be
able to deal with it. He is 89 years old and will leave it to the current
leaders to ensure the party gets back on track.”