Games South African Play

The reorganization of the African National Congress party (ANC) in South Africa is moving on from the T. Mbeki era... but how is it moving?

Two indications from the recent news reports:

In one of the least expected moves of the new leadership, Jacob Zuma is attempting to mend fences with the Afrikaner minority, which would be just fine if it wasn't being done in a way to drive a bigger wedge between the Boers and the Anglo-South Africans.

Praising Afrikaners as deeply rooted in the African continent, where Dutch settlers first landed at the Cape in 1652, he said: "Of all the white groups in South Africa, it is only Afrikaners who are true Africans in the real sense of the word."

The Afrikaners are true Africans, yes, but the only? There is a heck of a presumption there, Mr. Your-Tribe-Migrated-South-in-the-18th-Century.

The Public Prosecutor's Office has seen fit drop the charges against J. Zuma in the French Arms Deal corruption scandal. This was one of those cases where motivation trumped the facts: The repeated interventions by elements within the T. Mbeki government in continuing the investigation was rightly seen as a politically-motivated hit job on Mr. Zuma, but... The rival COPE party asks the correct question about the charges themselves:

The presidential candidate for COPE, a recently formed political party that broke away from the ANC, countered saying prosecutors should have gone forward with the case.

"We still have not heard about the merits or the demerits of the case against Mr. Zuma. The South African people want to know: Is he innocent or is he guilty?" COPE's Mvume Dandala said.

Sadly, because of some serious procedural misconduct, we may never get an answer to that.