Jacob Zuma, the president of the Africa National Congress (ANC) and South Africa’s president-in-waiting is the quintessential African politician. Only that he is late to the scene by 30 years. He is rough. He is randy. His sexual escapades, which he wears on his sleeves, are well documented. He has many wives. His first wife committed suicide. In the last written note testimony authored, she blamed Zuma for her death. He famously said as a Zulu man he never seduces a woman to have sex. He simply knows from the way the woman sits whether she is inviting him to have sex or not. Once he notices the lady’s posture, he proceeds accordingly depending on his dress mode, by either unzipping his trouser or more easily by throwing to the side the skin garment loosely dangling around his waist.

Things being equal, he will be crowned the next president of South Africa. This is the same man who famously said by taking a shower after unsafe sex he will be protect himself from contracting Aids! There is no doubt Zuma presents Africa’s past, not its future leaders. With a mindset of this nature, South Africans are waiting for a threatening hurricane, and they are not blinking yet. Africa’s fascination with the ugly, the bully, and rowdy leaders has for a long time fascinated anthropologists and South African’s flirtation with Zuma falls into the same setup.

The events that led to the resignation of Thabo Mbeki as South Africa’s president has shown the intriguing nature of politics in South Africa. On one side the orderly transfer of power to the interim president, Mr Kgalema Motlanthe and the sweeping edicts from the higher echelons of the ANC was breathtaking.

This is the oldest political party on the continent, and by recalling the president in a most undignified style, it showed how power is not only wield, but its filtering process was brutally on display too.

Mbeki despite his intellectual aura has the charisma of an undertaker and that did not help.

The enormity of power displayed by the ANC in recalling president Mbeki must be appreciated at several levels. First, it must be acknowledged especially in this part of the world that a party with historic continuity and memory is good for the politics of any country. ANC has shown that it has structures, and that it has teeth to bite. In Kenya for instance, where the average lifespan of a political party is three to five years and the party dies and a new one created as a result of ethnic reconfiguration, ANC’s power structure and discipline was poignant lesson for local politicians.

Second, Mbeki by answering the call of his party in throwing in the towel showed the maturity of politics in South Africa. He definitely has his support within the party.

Nelson Mandela

He could have counterattacked the Kenyan way by shouting loud that foreign money was poured to fight him or even go personal with Zuma. Remember, he won over forty percent of the vote during the leadership contest for the president of the ANC when he lost to Zuma.

Third, the silence of the great man Nelson Mandela was telling. He simply kept mum, not because he was for either side of the political divide. No! As a dignified ex-president he knows his role as an elder statesman and left politics to politicians.

That was an excellent lesson for those retired presidents with itchy fingers for powers like Jerry Rawling of Ghana.

Zuma’s ascendancy to the pinnacle of political power is a cruel reply of what has happened in other African countries in the 1980s and 90s. He has faced all kinds of allegations ranging from corruption in an arms deal to a rape allegation.

On corruption, we see a replay of the typical African politician’s strategy. Zuma had a financial adviser who was convicted and is currently serving sentence for his role in the corrupt arms deal. Zuma was heavily implicated as an accomplice by the judge who sentenced his adviser. He was then rightly fired as vice president. Pursuant to that, the government undertook investigation and referred criminal charges against Zuma. Being the typical African politician, he frustrated the legal process in all manners conceivable. Challenging and appealing every decision made against him by any court. At the same time, he was fermenting the party against Mbeki.

Zuma’s presidency will be calamitous. He is supremely unsuitable to be the president of any country, leave alone South Africa with its past tortured history and promising future. He will take South Africa down the ruinous road tin-god dictators with similar background took their countries in Africa.

With a party that sees his weakness and vices as the archetypical African male strengths, one will soon see the replay of unsavoury scenes reminiscent in other parts of Africa replayed gleefully by Zuma and his supporting orchestra. What is South Africa’s enthralment with this horrid character and his seedy past?