My Beauty Best Teacher

Yebo Gogo writes about the critical nature of the Zuma trial "...This trial is important to South Africa for three main reasons. First, the country needs to show that no one public official is above the law. Second, it needs to promote a culture where corruption won't be tolerated. And three, it appears one of Zuma's tactics is to agitate tribal hatred, which could split the country...what would threaten South African democracy is Zuma getting off of his charges because he's popular. He might not be guilty, but South Africa needs to send a message that he'll be tried, just like any other citizen..."

The FT editorial page writes about the incoming SA president, Jacob Zuma:

Mr Zuma has yet to show he has the backbone to do what is good for the country’s long-term health rather than what is politically expedient. Six months of uncertainty lie ahead before elections, a period in which he and the “new” ANC have much to prove...[continue reading]

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Image via Wikipedia From the Economist:

A LITTLE over half a year after Thabo Mbeki was ousted as president of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), worries are growing about the party’s new leadership and where it may take South Africa after a general election due next year. Arguments still rage over the corruption charges facing the new leader, Jacob Zuma, who is likely to replace Mr Mbeki as the country’s president. An unseemly fight within the ANC across the country is denting people’s confidence in their rulers...[continue reading]

Update-Decoding the Decoding the revolutionary rhetoric of the new ANC

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Alex Duval Smith writes in the Guardian:

An astounding lack of political delivery surrounds the South African crisis. Neither Mbeki nor his likely successor, Jacob Zuma, have altered their diaries in the past week to visit the displaced or speak to the nation. Instead, ministers, police chiefs and senior civil servants have put their energy into a two-pronged exercise of denial, aimed at proving that the attacks are linked neither to poverty nor to xenophobia. The intention is clearly to deflect any accusations that Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy' over Zimbabwe has led to an uncontrollable influx of foreigners and, thus, to xenophobia. Neither will the ANC tolerate suggestions that it has neglected its own poor...Established immigrants see the start of a worrying trend. 'Either there is government complicity, and that is unconscionable, or the government does not know how to react,' said writer Alois Rwiyegura, from Burundi, himself the survivor of an attack nine years ago. 'If the South African government does not know what to do, then how will it react if - as many of us fear - the violence degenerates into inter-ethnic clashes between poor South Africans?'

Other Coverage:
In a related article African Path reports on South Africa's "Ethnic Cleansing"
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes about the danger to South African Interests across the continent.
Nanja Boy highlights the potential risks to South African Businesses in Nigeria

From G. Pascal Zachary in Africa Works:

As a political tendency, “populism” seeks to challenge the wealthy, redress gaps between rich and poor, and improve the self-esteem and pride of the have-nots. Populists also tend to attack elites for looking down at the ordinary ban, and for using their superior education to make policies more complicated than they ought to be. Zuma is clearly populist in the traditional sense. The trouble with populism, historically, has been the abuse of the movement by its leaders. In practice,, populism can quickly slide into dictatorship...[continue reading]

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Anthony Hawkins writes in the Spectator:

South Africa’s political risk and investment ratings have taken a severe knock since Zuma won a stunning victory at the ruling African National Congress’s December 2007 conference in Polokwane. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that in the succeeding five months, the president-to-be should have been at such pains to dispel his anti-capitalist, populist image, not just by insisting on the reasonableness of his future administration’s economic policies, but by seeking to put Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, in his place...[continue reading]

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The Economist writes:

If Mr Mbeki had an iota of honour or courage or sense, he could have squeezed Mr Mugabe out of power several years ago—just as South Africa's leaders pulled the plug on the nastily bigoted Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith three decades ago, albeit after succouring it for far too long. Most of the other leaders in southern Africa—with a few notable exceptions, including Jacob Zuma, Mr Mbeki's rival and possible successor—have been equally feeble and downright dishonest. By failing to come together to denounce Mr Mugabe unequivocally, they have not only prolonged Zimbabwe's agony; they have damaged the whole of southern Africa, both materially and in terms of Africa's reputation.