SOUTH AFRICA: African National Congress and its presidential candidate Jacob Zuma are likely to win forthcoming election

Record ID: 452209

  • Title: SOUTH AFRICA: African National Congress and its presidential candidate Jacob Zuma are likely to win forthcoming election
  • Date: 21st April 2009
  • Summary: UNKNOWN LOCATION, SOUTH AFRICA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ZUMA AND MBEKI WALKING TO PODIUM AT ANC RALLY ZUMA AND MBEKI DANCING
  • Embargoed: 6th May 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: South Africa
  • Country: South Africa
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVADRAN0HEMFSPI9RIAXWT2VKH2N
  • Story Text: South Africans will vote on Wednesday (April 22) in the closest election since the end of apartheid with the ruling African National Congress' huge majority likely to be cut by a revitalised opposition.
    ANC leader Jacob Zuma will likely become South Africa's fourth democratic president but will have his work cut out.

    "We have identified five priority areas for the next five years: creation of decent work and sustainable livelihood, education, health, rural development, food security and land reform and the fight against crime and corruption," Zuma recently told crowds gathered at an ANC rally.
    More than 23 million voters are registered to cast their ballots in national and provincial elections in Africa's biggest economy.
    Analysts say the ANC's 70 percent majority may be reduced to between 60 and 65 percent -- removing the ability to change the constitution at will with a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
    But Zuma wasn't always the ANC's top man. His rival Thabo Mbeki used to be the party's chair and the country's president for nine years. Mbeki was credited for the country's massive economic growth but equally criticised for his misguided policies on HIV/AIDS and the country's high crime rate.
    Zuma was Mbeki's deputy until he was sacked in 2005 after charges of corruption, fraud, money laundering and racketeering were brought against him.
    Despite the charges, Zuma later ousted Mbeki as chairperson of the ANC.
    In September last year, the ANC pressured Mbeki to resign as president after a high court judge suggested there was high level political meddling in Zuma's graft trial.

    "I think now that you have a situation where this thing the opposition party has emerged - the opposition party is competing in the same pool as the ANC. I think the prospects of a greater challenge to the ANC emerges down the line 2014, 2019 and it really means that the ANC has to be on its toes. It has to deliver, it has to be respectful, it has to reject the arrogance of power that became so characteristic of the Mbeki administration," said Professor Adam Habib, a political analyst in Johannesburg.
    The official opposition Democratic Alliance, resurgent under new leader Helen Zille, and the new Congress of the People (COPE) -- formed by dissident ANC leaders -- are likely to take votes from the ruling party.

    "The question confronting all of us is this: Shall we keep quiet and do nothing as we see the open betrayal of what our people saw as the defining features of their hopes?" said Mosioua Lekota, COPE's party leader.
    Despite the opposition, most South Africans are confident that Jacob Zuma will be their president.

    "The ANC has done so much for us and me as an individual. I feel that it's a party. I'm not going to vote for a party that is claiming to be all and yet you can see that the leadership is all new. I'm black, I'm for the ANC and Zuma is my man," said Agnes Mokgadungwane in Johannesburg.

    "I don't think he is going to be much better that the last one we had because I think his history it doesn't augur well for anti-corruption," added Emily Schneider, also in Johannesburg.
    Whoever it may be, South Africans will expect their next president to come up with practical solutions to address a myriad of problems at home.
    Millions of blacks still live in impoverished shantytowns, unemployment is around 30 percent and the country has one of the highest rates of violent crime in the world. About 1,000 people die every day from illnesses related to AIDS.
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