South Africa’s solidarity unravelling

South Africa’s unlikely alliance, of forces drawn together by opposition to apartheid, was always expected to unravel, notes international affairs analyst Jonathan Manthorpe. That is now happening because, with public disgust at corruption and incompetence within the African National Congress (ANC) government — and not least a scorching new report by the nation’s Public Protector, the balance has shifted. Excerpt of Manthorpe’s new column:

… while Mandela remained alive it seemed almost sacrilegious to seriously argue that the ANC has betrayed its cause. Even the rise to the leadership of the ANC and South Africa’s presidency of Jacob Zuma, a man whose rise to power is littered with sexual and corruption scandals, was not enough to outweigh the blessings of the Mandela legacy.

However, the shift in the balance between past and present seems to have arrived this week, and even as campaigning has begun for the May 7 general election.

The highly respected Public Prosecutor Thuli Madosela on Wednesday released her damning report into the $23 million in public money spent on building Zuma a rural family compound displaying “opulence on a grand scale” at Nkandla in the hills of KwaZulu-Natal, one of the poorest of South Africa’s provinces.

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