Best news I heard all week.....
South Africa's Zuma Falls From Presidential Race on Rape Charge
Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Jacob Zuma, South Africa's former deputy president, was charged with rape yesterday, probably depriving labor unions of their preferred presidential candidate in the 2009 elections.
Zuma, 63, will stand trial on Feb. 13 on charges of raping a woman at his Johannesburg home last month. The minute Zuma was charged ``he was politically dead,'' Alister Sparks, an analyst at Andisa Securities in Johannesburg, said in a telephone interview. ``If he's found guilty, he's going to jail. If he's innocent, he's still politically dead.''
The 1.7-million-member Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party, which are part of the ruling alliance with the African National Congress, had favored Zuma to succeed Thabo Mbeki as president in 2009, on the grounds that he would back laws making it harder to fire workers and import cheap goods.
The ANC, which won almost 70 percent of the vote in the 2004 elections, will decide who will lead Africa's largest economy at a party congress in 2007. The leadership race has divided members and turned into ANC's worst crisis since the party took power in all- race elections in 1994.
Zuma's fall opens the presidential field to candidates including ANC Secretary-General Kgalema Motlanthe and businessmen Toyko Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa, said Robert Schrire, a politics professor at the University of Cape Town.
``The party will look for a peacemaker, somebody who will bring the party together,'' Schrire said in a telephone interview yesterday.
Fraud Charges
Mbeki, 63, fired Zuma on June 14 after a court ruled that Zuma's financial adviser Schabir Shaik tried to solicit a bribe for him and made payments to the deputy president. Zuma will go on trial for fraud in the Durban High Court on July 31. Zuma and his allies say those charges are part of a plot to stop him from becoming the country's president.
Zuma, who was released on 20,000 rand ($3,168) bail yesterday, said he would retain the deputy presidency of the ANC and voluntarily step down from all other leadership positions within the party.
``I wish to state clearly that I am innocent of these charges,'' he said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. ``I therefore appreciate the fact this matter is now before court and I am confident that it will be brought to its finality.''
The labor-union federation, known by its acronym Cosatu, had said it would still support Zuma after the fraud charges were filed, on the basis that it thought he had been unfairly treated. Cosatu yesterday said the rape charge is now in the court's hands.
Union Stance
``Should the allegations against the ANC deputy president be proven to be correct, Cosatu will demand the appropriate sentence,'' the federation said in an e-mailed statement. ``Any leader accused of such a hideous crime must at least take leave until such time that the allegations have been proven to be correct or incorrect.''
The federation does not have a preferred presidential candidate, and the issue of who should succeed Mbeki should be decided by the ANC, its president Willie Madisha told the state broadcaster Dec. 5.
``Irrespective of what the courts find, what's clear is that Zuma's been guilty of extremely poor judgment,'' said Nic Borain, an independent Cape Town-based political analyst whose clients include HSBC Securities. ``That's enough to put him out of the running.''
Other Candidates
Sexwale, Ramaphosa and Molanthe did not return calls seeking comment. Members of the ruling party traditionally nominate who they want as leaders, and potential candidates do not announce their intention to run for office.
Ramaphosa, 53, is a former unionist who helped negotiate the end of apartheid rule and has stakes in companies including Standard Bank Group Ltd., Africa's largest lender, Bidvest Group Ltd., an industrial company, and Alexander Forbes Ltd., a financial-services consulting group.
Sexwale, 52, a former freedom fighter and premier of Gauteng province, has interests in Absa Group Ltd., South Africa's biggest retail bank, and Gold Fields Ltd., the world's fourth-largest gold producer.
The labor unions will probably not have much of a say in who gets appointed to succeed Mbeki, Schrire said.
``Their political clout has been much exaggerated,'' he said. ``They have paid a very poor political game for a long time and I don't even think there is a candidate'' who supports their views now that Zuma isn't running. |
