South Africa's Zulu Clinton?

Sunday Times:

JACOB ZUMA, the controversial South African politician accused of corruption and rape, has gained unstoppable momentum in his quest to become the country’s next president.

Last week’s voting by branches of the African National Congress (ANC) across South Africa has given him a clear lead ahead of his arch rival, President Thabo Mbeki, beating him by 2,236 votes to 1,294, and setting off a rush of placemen and office seekers to join the Zuma bandwagon.

Mbeki has vowed to fight Zuma all the way for the party’s presidency at its conference in Polokwane in two weeks’ time, warning ANC parliamentarians against voting for “criminals and rapists” - seen as a clear allusion to Zuma.

Observers say that Mbeki is in denial and simply cannot face the humiliation that awaits him. In theory he will remain the country’s president until May 2009 but there is already talk of the triumphant Zuma forces ejecting him from office long before then.

Zuma’s popularity at grass-roots level is undeniable - in his own province of KwaZulu-Natal he won 599 votes to Mbeki’s nine and even in Mbeki’s province of the Eastern Cape he won 44% of the votes.

However, the long-standing allegations of corruption against him, together with his trial for rape - he was found not guilty but admitted having unprotected sex with a young woman who he knew was HIV positive - have irreparably damaged his reputation.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who last year described Zuma as “unfit” to become president, last week declared that “the ANC must not elect someone who the country will be ashamed of”.

Others point to Zuma’s polygamous career of 20 children with nine different women, his lack of formal education - most of it at the hands of fellow prisoners on Robben Island, where he spent 10 years alongside Nelson Mandela - and conclude, in Mbeki’s words, that under Zuma the country will become “a neo-colonial basket case”.

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There is much more. The Clinton comparison is probably unfair. I don't think that Zuma would be thoughtful and compassionate enough to suggest "You better put some ice on that," to someone he had just forced to have sex with him, allegedly. Zuma appears to be a guy who can't think of a good answer to a question that begins with "Why not...." I think he is probably closer to his next door neighbor Bob Mugabe who has shown rare skill in driving his own country into a ditch.