Is Jacob Zuma bad news for South Africa?

With a South African wife and daughter and in laws still leaving in South Africa, I like to pay close attention as to what is happening in that country.

This weeks big news is that Jakob Zuma, the colourful and controversial Zulu politician has been elected head of the ANC and quite likely the next South African president. Its generally assumed by the white population that this is a bad thing due to his more radical views and perhaps more importantly impending court case on corruption charges.

Zuma has fantastic grass routes support for one very good reason, in that 50% of South Africans have seen very little change in their lives since the end of Apartheid in 1994. Great leaps forward have been made in some areas so that people still have clean water and a constant power supply, but a lot of people are still living in poverty, whereas the white population hasn't really suffered too many hardships since the end of apartheid.

William Gumede writes a very thought provoking article called Zuma's victory may trigger the break-up of the ANC in which he looks at the reasons why Zuma one and concludes it was Zuma was seen of the lesser of two evils by lot of the ANC who had finally got tired of Thabo Mbeki.

If you're South African or just interested, I recommend reading the article