Mandela’s dream realised in Zuma victory

• Freedom icon has been uncomfortable with image of ANC as a Xhosa entity

Centrist path

But Dr Knox Chitiyo, an analyst at London’s Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), argues Mr Zuma will largely pursue a centrist path and will not impose any changes that would dramatically alter South Africa’s status as a regional political and economic power.

“Zuma will likely want to prove that the ANC is still a responsible and constitutionalist movement,” he said in a television interview this week.

For Mr Mandela, in the sunset years of his life, his efforts to unite the party will likely be one of his most important final contributions to the ANC.

His enthusiastic backing of Mr Zuma will also place a huge responsibility on his successor’s shoulders. In an election day editorial, South Africa’s Mail and Guardian newspaper wrote:

“Many South Africans who voted this week said they were doing it for Nelson Mandela, who ushered in the dawn of a better life for all. In 2014, when Zuma’s term comes to an end, it will be 20 years since the ANC took power. He can go down as the man who betrayed Madiba’s legacy or the man who delivered his promise… Mr Zuma, you owe Mandela, you owe the exalted and the nameless dead, you owe all of us. Don’t let us down.”