Posted on 09/20/2008 8:46:22 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
An epic battle for power has ended with a ‘Zulu peasant’ ousting a president in South Africa
SOUTH AFRICA’S president, Thabo Mbeki, was toppled from power yesterday by his rival Jacob Zuma, president of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), when its national executive committee took the decision to sack him.
Gwede Mantashe, the ANC’s secretary-general, announced that the executive had “decided to recall the president of the republic before his term of office expires”.
Mbeki, 66, instructed his office to issue a statement saying: “The president has obliged and will step down after all constitutional requirements have been met.”
He may be allowed to linger in office a few days more so he can attend a meeting of the United Nations in New York this week and make his formal farewells to world leaders.
Mbeki accepted his political demise calmly, said Mantashe. “He did not display shock . . . He welcomed the news and agreed that he is going to participate in the process and the formalities.”
Nevertheless, it was a humiliation for the aloof, Sussex University-educated Mbeki, who has been president for nine years and largely ran the country during Nelson Mandela’s presidency before that.
The vote to oust him was the culmination of an epic power struggle between Mbeki, the ANC prince sent into exile for 28 years, and Zuma, also 66, the roughhewn farm boy who spent 10 years in jail on Robben Island.
Enemies have accused Mbeki of having a strong streak of paranoia and this seems to have motivated him in a campaign to destroy Zuma that has lasted for nearly a decade.
Mbeki has made it clear that he regards Zuma, a self-pro-claimed polygamist, with disdain as “a Zulu peasant” who will turn South Africa into “a neo-colonial basket case”.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
I hate to be a Mr. Obvious...
There’s no title on the Forum page.
Look in the mirror, Mbeki. Is Zuma even worse?
That must be a very old tagline. I haven’t heard anybody say that like they believed it yet this century.
In South Africa, we have a Communist Party which has been at the forefront of organisations mobilising the working class for revolutionary struggle to achieve a united, non-racial and democratic South Africa. Together with the ANC and the trade union movement, the SACP has been part of the lead force for national liberation. The contribution of the SACP to the liberation struggle - through its ideas and grooming of cadres - can never be underestimated. One of the main challenges for the Party is that, in addition to maintaining its vanguard role, championing the interests of the poor, it must remain one of the key repositories for political thought development, perception and intellectual engagement in the broad movement.
In my view, the relaunch of the Young Communist League has played a significant role in grooming a new generation of clear-thinking communists who will meet this challenge.
What an improvement! /sarc
Sounds like Oblahma, his Black Liberation Church and his COMMUNEity organization.
yitbos
Just what I’m thinking, more or less-and to think that South Africa used to be on a par with any civilised, First World democracy in most ways.
I can’t disagree with that.
Zuma announces his endorsement of his African brother B, Hussein Obama.
yitbos
Young Communist League. . .Obama’s idea of ‘National Service’. . .’Dear Leaders’, admired, no doubt, by Obama - a ‘Dear Leader’ wannabe.
Does SA still have any NUKES? How strong is the Islamic population in SA?
South Africa, well on the way to becoming another Zimbabwe.
I agree. I’m trying to remind people (including myself) to reclaim it.
Good idea.
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