Welcome Comrade Zuma, SA’s first African ruler

South Africa is about to elect its first African president.

A 66 year-old man who learnt to read and write in prison, was indicted for corruption, a populist politician with a strong tribal appeal, a revolutionary of Umkhonto we Sizwe for which he was intelligence chief, Jacob Zuma is the next ruler of South Africa. Mr Zuma is what my grandfather would have a described as a man with a strong thigh, five wives and/or fiancés and counting with 18 children out of his loins.

I have visited South Africa a couple of times. It is a huge, beautiful and rich land. It is also a disturbed nation with a history of the worst and most recent organized racism on earth.

It is easy to see why in some analysis it is seen as two countries in one: There is the rich, technologically advanced, urban South Africa which is still white-dominated and the poor, mainly rural, African half which is Third World in every aspect.

The first has money, the second has the votes. Former President Thabo Mbeki, by managing the economy and the state so well, took very good care of the first but neither did he bond with nor deliver the fast change that the second expected.

Mr Mbeki was at home in the rich half of the country to which he naturally belonged as the scion of a leading ANC family.

Mr Zuma, on the other hand, is of the poor, great, unwashed, African mass. The son of a policeman and a house girl, the other half thinks he is a corrupt buffoon, a clown and an embarrassment.

His people think he is the saviour who will bring wealth, power and privilege to the marginalized Africans. He must be a very clever man to have come as far as he has without the benefits of a formal education and connections.

As a political schemer, he is brilliant, as can be seen from the way he outmanoeuvred Mr Mbeki and the many roadblocks that have been placed on his path, from the rape trial to the corruption circus.

Fate has also smiled upon him; he has the support and affection of Nelson Mandela. Many people might think that this could be because Mr Mandela found Mr Mbeki a difficult man.

It has been reported that Mr Mandela would take many days to get through to Mr Mbeki whenever he wished to speak to him. But there is history and tribal sensitivities at play.

Mr Mandela has always wrestled with the fact that the ANC was at risk of being seen as a preserve of the Xhosa nation; many of his comrades at the top of the party during the struggle were, like him, sons or daughters of the Transkei.

I would expect that the old school of the ANC would welcome an early opportunity to have a Zulu at the helm of the ANC and the nation. Mr Zuma is that opportunity.

Mr Zuma has said all the right things to the right people. To the first South Africa, he has said there will be no change in economic policy, and that he will respect all those things that need to be respected; he is asking for forgiveness and reconciliation; he says he won’t fix Mr Mbeki for trying to fix him and all that.

I have seen one newspaper reporting that Mr Zuma talks Davos-speak very well. But a few things have been escaping through the edges. Mr Zuma, in an interview this week, said judges, many of whom have tried him, have too much power, they are not God and that he would like to “engage” them on that.

Then there are his Umshini Wami (Bring me my machine gun) moments which raise some issues about the depth and width of his feelings about racial reconciliation.

I have read about some noise coming from the Zuma camp for the prosecution of Number One (Mr Mbeki) and his cronies. Mr Zuma’s legal team, you will recall, hinted that Mr Mbeki is not the Mr Clean he has been presented to be.

I am a deeply cynical man, and I fear Mr Zuma will be total disaster for South Africa. Maybe countries need that to realise that life is not a walk in the park. Just like we needed the tribal war here to realize we are capable of evil and that our leaders are our greatest enemy.

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Kenya is an opposition country; kick the government in the teeth and you will have the masses eating out of your hand. There is no reference, there is no record, there is no consistency in politics.

An arch-conservative hawk of today morphs into a revolutionary seeking to change society tomorrow. Kenya has some of the most cynical and sickening hypocrisy of any country in the world.

Former Justice Martha Karua resigned last iweek, saying she can not serve in a government that was blocking her reform efforts.

She spoke about her disappointment at Parliament’s refusal to change the Constitution to clear the way for a local tribunal to try the masterminds of election violence.

I recall from the debate in the House that one of the most vocal opponents of that Bill was Danson Mungatana, the secretary-general of Ms Karua’s party, Narc-K, who has also resigned as assistant minister in sympathy.

I don’t expect that the party is so disorganized that the secretary-general assumes positions on major issues without the consent of the party.

If Mr Mungatana was expressing the views of the party, that is, a local tribunal is not desirable, then, by Ms Karua’s yard stick, Narc-K is anti-reform. In my opinion, one of the biggest obstacle to reforms in Kenya is, of course, parliament.

When it is not dragging its feet on important legislation, it is taking the most awful decisions, as with the tribunal.

It therefore follows that if Ms Karua wants a clean break from anti-reformers to become a true champion of the people and of change, she should also resign from her party and Parliament.

I also can’t reconcile her contempt for the Judiciary and the way judges are appointed and the fact that she is one of the most litigatious politicians ever. Is the tail wagging the dog, again?

Mutuma Mathiu is the managing editor, Daily Nation; mmutuma@nation.co.ke