{"id":47445,"date":"2024-05-10T05:10:48","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T05:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/10\/jacob-zuma-once-leader-of-the-a-n-c-becomes-its-political-rival\/"},"modified":"2024-05-10T05:10:49","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T05:10:49","slug":"jacob-zuma-once-leader-of-the-a-n-c-becomes-its-political-rival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/10\/jacob-zuma-once-leader-of-the-a-n-c-becomes-its-political-rival\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacob Zuma, Once Leader of the A.N.C., Becomes Its Political Rival"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/10\/multimedia\/10safrica-zuma-promo\/10safrica-zuma-2-cftg-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Jacob Zuma, Once Leader of the A.N.C., Becomes Its Political Rival\" title=\"Jacob Zuma, Once Leader of the A.N.C., Becomes Its Political Rival\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Jobless graduates, struggling business owners and army veterans marched through the eastern South African city of Pietermaritzburg this week, chanting the name \u201cJacob Zuma.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The 500 or so demonstrators brought to a standstill parts of the city, in KwaZulu-Natal Province \u2014 the traditional stronghold of Mr. Zuma, a past president of both South Africa and the African National Congress, the party that governed the country for three decades.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Demanding water and electricity, the protest over commonplace local concerns was also a show of power for the new political party that Mr. Zuma now leads \u2014 uMkhonto weSizwe, or M.K. \u2014 with the hope of eroding the dominant position of his former allies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe are going to have to fight for things to change,\u201d said Khumbuzile Phungula, 49, who joined the march after her neighborhood went weeks without water. \u201cM.K. is all about change.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As vendors sold Jacob Zuma T-shirts and an M.K.-branded energy drink, and men in the military fatigues of long disbanded anti-apartheid movements marshaled the crowd, the marchers embodied Mr. Zuma\u2019s new party: a group of aggrieved voters who, like him, have fallen out with a governing party they view as ineffectual and corrupt. Mr. Zuma\u2019s supporters now form a bloc large enough to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/10\/world\/africa\/south-africa-jacob-zuma-election.html\" title=\"\">turn him into a potential kingmaker<\/a> in South Africa\u2019s general election on May 29.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Not present at the Pietermaritzburg march was Mr. Zuma himself. Instead, he was preparing for a hearing at South Africa\u2019s Constitutional Court on Friday about whether Mr. Zuma, 82, is eligible to stand at all. He <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/02\/14\/world\/africa\/jacob-zuma-resigns-south-africa.html\" title=\"\">resigned from the top office in 2018<\/a> amid widespread protests, and three years later was convicted and sentenced for <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/06\/29\/world\/africa\/jacob-zuma-prison.html\" title=\"\">failing to appear at a corruption inquiry<\/a>, though in the end he <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/08\/11\/world\/africa\/jacob-zuma-released-south-africa.html\" title=\"\">served only two months<\/a> of a 15-month sentence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Zuma is also already facing factional battles within his budding party: A senior M.K. leader has accused the party of forging the signatures needed to contest the election, and the police say they are investigating the claims, which Mr. Zuma has dismissed as a baseless smear.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Yet neither of those potential obstacles has deterred M.K. party members or diminished Mr. Zuma\u2019s status as a political threat. A lower court <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/10\/world\/africa\/south-africa-jacob-zuma-election.html\" title=\"\">has already ruled<\/a> that he can run for office, and M.K. plans to turn his next court appearance into a campaign event in which Mr. Zuma is expected to address his followers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Both Mr. Zuma and his party have quickly gained momentum, capitalizing on the A.N.C.\u2019s internal leadership squabbles and its failure to provide basic services for South Africans. Since its founding just five months ago, M.K. has upended the country\u2019s political landscape and become one of the most visible opposition parties in a crowded arena.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Though he led the party they now blame for the country\u2019s troubles, Mr. Zuma\u2019s supporters look back at his decade in office with nostalgia, including many of those at the demonstration in KwaZulu-Natal, the country\u2019s second most populous province.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Lucky Sibambo, a forestry engineer who described himself as a political spectator before the launch of M.K. and who helped mobilize the march, said he believed Mr. Zuma\u2019s support for expropriating land without compensation and redistributing it would help Black businesses like his.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Sphumelele Mthembu, 28, said she had been unable to find a paying job despite having a postgraduate degree in clinical psychology. \u201cWe\u2019re done with the A.N.C.,\u201d she said, watching the march from the balcony of a youth training center. \u201cWe\u2019re tired of the lies, the money going missing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And Mnqobi Msezane, 34, who has been drumming up support for Mr. Zuma on university campuses, cited his promises of free college education. Mr. Msezane dismissed the corruption accusations that dogged the former president\u2019s tenure as a political ploy to thwart Mr. Zuma in challenging the Black political elite and ending the economic dominance of white South Africans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cPoverty has a color to it, and it\u2019s Black,\u201d Mr. Msezane said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Zuma has turned his court battles into fodder for campaign speeches claiming political persecution, and his supporters have rebranded the controversies of his presidency as tales of success. But even as his popularity has helped the M.K. party grow, the scandal-prone former president also has liabilities as a party leader, Mashupye Herbert Maserumule, a professor of public affairs at the Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria, said in an interview.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It is clear each time Mr. Zuma addresses a crowd that his personal gripes shape the party\u2019s policies, Mr. Maserumule said. Mr. Zuma has, for example, called for judicial change, an echo of his repeated claims that he is a target of the courts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And, he added, \u201cIf he\u2019s no longer the face of M.K, that will also mark the end of M.K.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But so far the M.K.\u2019s growth has eaten into support for older opposition parties, like the Democratic Alliance \u2014 the country\u2019s official opposition \u2014 and the Economic Freedom Fighters. One former councilor for the Democratic Alliance, Shawn Adkins, a pastor, even said he had decided at the Pietermaritzburg march to defect to the M.K., fed up with the slow rollout of housing in his neighborhood. \u201cI\u2019m convinced,\u201d Mr. Adkins said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Support for the A.N.C. has been <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/11\/04\/world\/africa\/south-africa-election-anc.html\" title=\"\">declining for years,<\/a> and facing a clear threat from the M.K., the governing party is meeting its new rival head-on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The A.N.C. recently deployed its senior leaders and alliance partners for what the party called \u201ca week of intensive campaigning in KwaZulu-Natal,\u201d in an effort to ingratiate itself with voters there. Alongside hundreds of volunteers, prominent A.N.C. figures fanned out across the province, foregoing large rallies for more personal home visits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe are actually going all out to talk to people, to say to them that the A.N.C. still exists, the A.N.C. is still strong, it\u2019s still worth supporting,\u201d said Dr. Zweli Mkhize, a former A.N.C. provincial chairman and presidential candidate who was campaigning in Pietermaritzburg\u2019s Eastwood township.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Their efforts paid off with some locals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One voter, Queenie Potgieter, 65, said that she would have supported M.K. if the A.N.C. had not \u201cwarmed\u201d her home, but that a visit by Dr. Mkhize had changed her mind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And as Dr. Mkhize handed out T-shirts and sarongs in the party\u2019s colors, Tusiwe Mkhabela, a 21-year-old first-time voter, burst into tears at the sight of a man she considers a celebrity. The A.N.C. has provided her family with welfare and food parcels, she said, and she believes they will also secure a job for her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Yet Annaline Merime, 28, who has never voted, dismissed the A.N.C. stalwart with a side eye. \u201cOnly when it\u2019s time for voting do they do this,\u201d she said. \u201cWhere are they the rest of the year?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Dr. Mkhize said that the A.N.C., aware of its own failures, would not underestimate Mr. Zuma\u2019s support in the province, or the voters\u2019 frustration. It was under Mr. Zuma that the A.N.C. itself grew in KwaZulu-Natal, and it was Mr. Zuma who groomed the province\u2019s current leaders, Dr. Mkhize said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Noting that the A.N.C. has dealt with breakaway parties before, Dr. Mkhize said he remained cautiously confident.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe only complication for us is that we\u2019ve never had President Zuma campaigning on the opposite side,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/10\/world\/africa\/south-africa-zuma-election.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jobless graduates, struggling business owners and army veterans marched through the eastern South African city of Pietermaritzburg this week, chanting the name \u201cJacob Zuma.\u201d The 500 or so demonstrators brought to a standstill parts of the city, in KwaZulu-Natal Province \u2014 the traditional stronghold of Mr. Zuma, a past president of both South Africa and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47446,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/10\/multimedia\/10safrica-zuma-promo\/10safrica-zuma-2-cftg-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[48116,28603,1891,234,1292,28604],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47447,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47445\/revisions\/47447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}