Once labelled Black Jesus by some of his supporters, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma is now seen by many in his party as its biggest problem.
He has lost the support of several veterans of his African National Congress (ANC) party, of the party’s communist allies and of the country’s largest trade union confederation.
By staying on, the scandal-tarnished president will only “deepen the crisis of confidence in the government,” Ahmed Kathrada, one of South Africa’s most respected anti-apartheid veterans, said before his death in March. While most of the party and the intelligence service are still believed to be firmly under presidential control, public criticism of Zuma has increased within the ANC, with one legislator even calling him “a dishonourable and disgraceful leader.”
Born on April 12, 1942, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma spent his early years herding cattle and goats. His policeman father passed away when he was about 4, and he had to forego school to help his domestic worker mother support the family. Zuma joined the anti-apartheid movement ANC at 17 and its armed wing three years later. He was handed 10 years in jail for trying to overthrow the regime and served his sentence on Robben Island alongside Nelson Mandela. After 1994 elections and the victory of the ANC, Zuma served as a minister in KwaZulu-Natal before becoming deputy president in 1999. Six years later, he was sacked by president Thabo Mbeki over corruption allegations, a move that allowed Zuma to distance himself from Mbeki’s failure to eliminate poverty and to beat him in the ANC leadership vote in 2007. Zuma won the presidency in the 2009 elections. His first term in office was plagued by weak economic growth, labour unrest and crime levels that remain among the highest in the world.
Zuma’s second five-year term saw his popularity sink even lower, when the Constitutional Court asked him to repay part of $18.5 million in taxpayers’ money he had used to renovate his rural homestead in Nkandla.
And the president courted controversy over his close relations with the Gupta business family, which allegedly obtained lucrative contracts in exchange for favours to those in power, and even influenced ministerial appointments. Many young South Africans also shun Zuma’s image as a Zulu traditionalist, with complaints abounding over the cost of maintaining his four wives. Zuma’s government is being blamed for economic slowdown as corruption and mismanagement have aggravated the effects of drought and falling commodity prices. — dpa
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