Zuma strengthens South African alliance with China

South African President Jacob Zuma is looking for ways to cut his country’s trade deficit with its largest partner as he begins a three day visit to China. Last year South Africa ran a $2.7 billion trade deficit with China and Zuma’s Trade Minister explained why in a press conference on arrival in Beijing today. “In South Africa's export market to China there is a preponderance of primary products, and in our imports from China there is a preponderance of value-added goods," he said. Davies and his boss Zuma want Chinese manufacturers of power equipment, railway cars, solar water heaters and vehicles to consider setting up factories in South Africa.

The relationship between the two countries is growing in importance as China continues its push for influence across the continent of Africa. In the first six months of 2010, there was $10.8 billion trade between the two countries almost half as much again as the same period last year. Zuma will hold talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing and will also meet Premier Wen Jiabao and tour the World Expo site in Shanghai. Zuma will be accompanied by an enormous delegation of 300 ministers and businesspeople as the Africans aim to emulate the Chinese growth rate.

Zuma expects to sign a number of agreements and memorandums of understanding during the visit. These include a declaration on the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership, and MOUs on co-operation in the fields of geology and mineral resources, environment management, transport and railways. There will also be a business seminar in Beijing with over 200 South African business leaders and entrepreneurs to further enhance and strengthen economic co-operation. The visit will conclude on Thursday when Zuma views the South African Pavilion at the Shanghai 2010 World Expo.

The relationship between the two countries is one of the fastest growing in the world. The countries did not re-establish relations after the end of apartheid until 1998 but within 11 years China had overtaken the US to become SA’s largest exporter and importer of goods and services. Zuma has called the trip “crucial” with China National Nuclear Corp in talks to build a nuclear power plant in South Africa. The relationship is important to China too which imports SA iron ore, iron and steel to fuel its growing economy. Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said his government would encourage domestic companies to invest in South Africa's mining and resources sector.

According to Chinese State news agency Xinhua, Zuma and Jintao signed a Beijing Declaration in the Great Hall of the People earlier today. The declaration contained 38 bilateral cooperation agreements, including political dialogues, trade, investment, mineral exploration and agriculture to joint efforts in the UN and the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. The declaration also promised to strengthen cooperation between the two nations in political and regional affairs by “establishing a comprehensive strategic partnership based on equality, mutual benefit and common development”.

Zuma’s China trip is a welcome relief as he faces mounting problems at home, with more than a million public sector workers striking. The success of the World Cup is a distant glow as a strike by more than a million public sector workers enters its second week. Strikers include teachers, healthcare workers, police, customs officials and clerks who are seeking pay raises of more than double the inflation rate. The strike is paralysing the economy and police have used rubber bullets to disperse angry protesters on the streets. Unions are pressing for a settlement but Zuma said he will not negotiate until he returns from China.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, the health of South Africa’s economy is direct tied to China whose demand for SA resources is keeping the rand high. The currency’s strength continues despite the strikes and persistently high unemployment and public-sector strikes. The public sector unions were crucial in getting Zuma the top job so it is likely he will meet their demands. This will push South Africa's already high inflation rate to well over 5 percent by year’s end, and lead to another cycle of pay demands next year. The 68-year-old president will need all the help he can get from his new Chinese alliances.

Zuma election win confirmed but falls short of two-thirds majority

Final results from South Africa’s election showed that Jacob Zuma’s African National Congress (ANC) has fallen just short of the two-thirds majority it needed to change the country’s constitution. The ANC took 65.9 per cent of the vote which gave it 264 seats in South Africa's 400-seat parliament. While the overall result was a foregone conclusion, the drop of 4 percent from the last election in 2004 was one of the few crumbs of comfort for opposition parties who feared a Zuma landslide would lead to the reduction in local government powers.

Nonetheless it still represents an impressive mandate for the party that has ruled since open elections began in 1994. It blitzed its closest rival the Democratic Alliance (DA) led by Helen Zille which took just 16.7 per cent of the vote. The election also represents a remarkable comeback for the newly installed president. Just four years ago Zuma was sacked as deputy president by his boss Thabo Mbeki for being implicated in a corruption scandal. He was charged with corruption, money laundering and racketeering, but the charges were dropped on a technicality in the lead-up to the election. Zuma’s supporters claim he was the victim of a political conspiracy hatched by Mbeki.

Zuma got his revenge when he assumed leadership of the ANC in December 2007. At the party’s national conference he defeated Thabo Mbeki by a 60:40 margin leaving Mbeki a lame duck president. Zuma counted on the support of people in rural areas and townships where unemployment is nudging 50 percent and poverty is widespread. It was also South Africa's shack-dwellers, farm workers, unemployed and domestic workers who gave Zuma his emphatic election win.

And despite many problems associated with their 15 year tenure of power, most of South Africa’s poor don’t have a logical alternative to vote for. Most people see Zille’s DA as the political front of white business while the newly formed Congress of the People (an ANC breakaway faction loyal to Mbeki) which came third, is seen to stand for black business. Together their combined vote barely topped 24 percent and, according to the BBC, will face pressure to merge if they are to launch a more effective challenge to the ANC in the next election in 2014.

In the meantime, it will be Jacob Zuma's turn to hog the limelight. The 67 year old is the first Zulu president and is known for wearing traditional garb including leopard skins and a spear at ceremonial events. He celebrated victory on Thursday in typical fashion by dancing and singing his signature song, the Zulu anti-apartheid anthem "Bring Me My Machine Gun." Yet many people believe there is a political conservative hiding underneath this flamboyant façade. During the election, Zuma offered prayers to ancestors, denounced same-sex marriage as a "disgrace to God", promised a referendum on the death penalty, condemned political rivals as "witches" and "snakes", and defended polygamy as "African".

Zuma’s most difficult task will be to fulfil his post-election promise to unite the country. Nearly all of the nation’s whites and coloured people voted for the DA and South Africa’s communities still live their lives apart along colour-coded lines despite the emergence of a growing black middle class. As Matthew Tostevin writes at Reuters, Zuma will have to juggle the needs of those who want a greater share of the wealth with those who feel they are politically marginalised.

There is also suspicion over the long-standing charges against Zuma which were suddenly dropped two weeks prior to the election. In 2005 his personal financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for soliciting and paying bribes and for fraud, mostly to benefit his boss. Zuma was then charged with 16 offences for corruption, money-laundering and racketeering over a controversial $5bn 1999 arms deal with French company Thint. After a complicated court case, the charges were first deemed unlawful, then reinstated on appeal, before finally being dropped due to flaws in the legal process. State prosecutors denied they had yielded to pressure from the incoming government but said that their case had been irretrievably compromised by pressure from the old Mbeki administration.

Zuma also survived a rape charge in 2005 brought by the daughter of a friend. The case was dismissed after the judge ruled the sex was consensual. However Zuma’s testimony revealed startlingly naïve attitudes about sex and AIDS, including an admission that he had unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman but he showered afterward to reduce the risk of infection. Zuma’s handlers, aware of his unorthodox opinions, shut him down during the election campaign and he refused to answer all policy questions deferring instead to the ANC's executive committee.

While the ANC has faithfully served the anti-apartheid cause for almost a century, many argue it is now time to move on to a new political era in South Africa. The party’s popularity, membership and moral authority are in decline. Five million South Africans have HIV/AIDS (the largest population in the world),violent crime is endemic; and the black underclass continues to grow. In 2006, the South African Institute of Race Relations estimated that 4.2 million South Africans were living on $1 a day or less in 2005, up from 1.9 million in 1996 (pdf). With or without the protection of the ANC executive committee, Zuma will need a lot more than populist appeal and revolutionary anthems to deal effectively with these issues.

Zuma assumes control

Jacob Zuma has refused to speak in his first public outing since becoming African National Congress (ANC) leader on Wednesday. Reporters crowded around him as he emerged from a meeting with key deputies and followed him until they released with embarrassment he was going to the toilet. When he re-emerged from the bathroom, Zuma merely smiled and laughed at requests for comment before being whisked away by bodyguards into an awaiting car.

His first official speech is likely to be tonight at the party’s closing session. The 65 year old Zuma was elected on Tuesday night at the party’s national conference in the far northern city of Polokwane. In the party’s first leadership election contest in 58 years, Zuma won with 2,329 of the votes at the ANC's five-yearly convention to the Mbeki's 1,505. His convincing victory steers the way clear for a tilt at the South African presidency in 2009 while the aloof Mbeki takes on the mantle of a “lame duck” leader.

Analysts are divided in their interpretation of Zuma’s 60 per cent victory. Some see it as a sign of healthy democracy in the ANC while others see it as a portent of a fatal split in the organisation. Mbeki was booed and heckled during his speech to the congress on Sunday while Zuma supporters danced and loudly sang their signature anthem “Awuleth’ Umshini Wami” which means "Bring me my machine (gun)".

Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma was born in Kwa-Zulu Natal in 1942. He received no formal schooling and joined the ANC aged 17. Just one year later the apartheid regime made the ANC illegal. Zuma was arrested in 1963 while trying to leave South Africa. He was convicted of conspiracy against the government and served ten years on Robben Island. After his release, he organised the ANC in exile in Swaziland and Mozambique. After the ANC was unbanned in 1990, Zuma was instrumental negotiating a peaceful transition to a majority government and rose through the ranks to become deputy president.

But in 2005 Zuma was strongly implicated in the corruption scandal of Schabir Shaik, a banker and close friend of Zuma’s. A court found Shaik guilty of persuading a French arms company to pay an annual half million rand bribe (about $75,000 on current exchange rates) to Zuma in return for the firm’s participation in a multi-billion rand arms deal. Testimony showed Zuma was always short of money and relied on Shaik’s kickback to subsidise his extravagant lifestyle. Shaik was jailed for 15 years and Mbeki sacked Zuma shortly afterwards.

At the time, this seemed a fatal blow to Zuma’s political career with a likely trial and prison sentence to follow. But in September last year, a judge dismissed the State’s application to postpone Zuma’s trial and struck the matter off the roll. Justice Herbert Msimang said the state's effort to prosecute was "anchored on unsound foundations". But the state hasn’t given up hope and a decision must be made early next year on whether to press charges of racketeering, tax evasion, fraud and corruption against him.

Some are now worried that the populist Zuma will turn South Africa into the “new Zimbabwe”. Many fear his appointment will cause an exodus of skilled white workers and their wealth. The Johannesburg share market declined 1.5 per cent yesterday on news of Zuma’s ascension. The business community is worried that Mbeki’s market friendly policies will now be abandoned by the apparently more socialistic Zuma. Stanislava Pravdova, an analyst at Denmark's Danske Bank, had a typical business reaction. "With Zuma's victory, South African politics has lost a lot of its credibility abroad," she said.

However the door may yet open for newly installed ANC Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe to take control of his country's fortunes. Motlanthe is a natural backroom player and mostly shuns the limelight that comes so naturally to Zuma. But as a former political prisoner, Motlanthe is well respected within the party and is a good negotiator. He is also likely to play a compromising role between Zuma and Mbeki. More interestingly, it remains distinctly possible that the next presidency could fall into his lap if Zuma is unable to shake the persistent corruption allegations over the next 12 months.