Jacob Zuma is now President of South Africa. For all of the gnashing of teeth in recent months, for all of the resentments, petty and substantial, Zuma has ascended to the country’s highest office. And if his inaugural address provides any indication, he is aware of the responsibilities before him. Or at least he is saying all of the right things.
There is tentative hope in some quarters that he will grow into the job. And then there is the more prosaic (but no less problematic from Zuma’s vantage point I would guess) question of which of Zuma’s three wives will serve as the country’s First Lady.
I have no opinion on this latter issue, but on the more substantial question about what to expect and whether to harbor hope, I do see room for cautious optimism, which is, I admit, my default setting when it comes to South Africa. It is easy to make the mistake of confusing the country’s president for the lone voice of the party. But to conflate the two would be wrong. South Africa has a vibrant political culture both within the ANC and without. After all, even during those years when the party held enough control of parliament to change the constitution unilaterally it did not, at least in part because the party’s internal dissent is as vibrant as the criticism it receives from the opposition. Zuma does not, I’ll grant, present the most trustworthy leadership visage South Africa has put forward. But that in and of itself is not reason yet to reject the premise of a Zuma-led South Africa.
