Zuma was sacked by Mbeki in 2005 for alleged corruption, was cleared of rape charges the year after, and has been the target of continued corruption investigations over the past decade. He was formally charged by the country’s national public prosecutor on 28 December 2007, and on 4 August 2008 he will have to answer to 16 charges, including racketeering, corruption, money laundering and fraud.

How did the party that produced peace Nobel laureates such as Nelson Mandela and Albert Luthuli as leaders settle on Zuma, then? Zuma’s victory must be partially blamed on Mbeki, who in spite of overseeing economic growth of 5% per year during the past two years (the biggest boom since 1981) has not redistributed this prosperity to poor blacks. Furthermore, Mbeki has been dismissive of the deep worries of members of ANC members and ordinary South Africans, over problems ranging from rampant crime, failing public health and educational systems, high levels of HIV/AIDS and rising poverty and unemployment levels. Many poorer South Africans now demand the dividends of this infant democracy: they want the democratic system to protect them, and they want the extraordinarily high economic growth rates to be fairly shared.

Disappointingly, the notoriously aloof and thin-skinned Mbeki has been spectacularly oblivious to this. Those optimists who think the earthy and friendly Zuma will be any better - except perhaps being more accessible and humble, which is obviously in itself a breath of fresh air - would do well to have their heads examined. South Africa’s democracy needs more then a bit of fresh air. Now, more then ever, South Africa’s democracy, stagnant political culture and democratic institutions, is in desperate need of renewal. This calls for fresh ideas and imagination to deal more innovatively with rising poverty, unemployment and inequality. It is unlikely that the opposition parties, who may well inhibit a different planet from the majority of voters, will do much better either. So, the ANC will have to do then.

It was clear that grassroots ANC members wanted Mbeki, a sitting president, out, even if it meant electing Zuma, who in spite of his courting of unionists and socialists to secure the ANC presidency is at heart a conservative like his former friend. Of course, among those who voted for Zuma are people who genuinely believe, even if that belief is misguided, that Zuma will bring new substance as well as style. For many of Zuma’s more hardnosed backers on the Left ( the Congress of South African Trade Unions and South African Communist Party) this was more about getting rid of Mbeki at all cost - Zuma was just a means to an end. Although there has been widespread grassroots disapproval over some of Mbeki’s policies, until Zuma’s break with Mbeki following his firing in 2005 there was no figure within the ANC who was prepared to publicly challenge Mbeki or the government. Following his fallout with Mbeki, and with public prosecutors on his heels, Zuma, himself a wily operator, carefully used the popular unhappiness, and Mbeki’s dismissal of it, to build an internal coalition of ANC branches, affiliates and members, on which he surfed into the ANC presidency. Many of those who backed Zuma now had initially plotted the ousting of Mbeki at the ANC’s 2002 national conference, but Mbeki was then still firmly in the saddle.

Yet, it is clear even to Zuma’s staunchest Left supporters that his reign atop the ANC leadership may just be temporary. Significantly, at the ANC’s December 2007 conference, there was a second, more coded jostling over who should succeed Mbeki. Younger candidates such Cyril Ramaphosa, Mathews Phosa and Tokyo Sexwale who initially wanted to challenge for the ANC presidency quickly withdrew when it became clear that neither Mbeki nor Zuma was prepared to give way. In such a charged scenario, ANC members felt it more prudent to back Zuma in spite of his shortcomings if Mbeki was going to be dislodged. For another, younger Turks withdrew in the ANC tradition of deferring to the presidential incumbent, to prevent internal divisions. Those who still could have voted for Mbeki at the ANC’s December conference most probably balked at the last moment, when it appeared that he wanted to be re-elected the ANC president, although he cannot be South Africa’s president again because of term limits. The die was cast to install his unknown puppet successor. Those like defense minister Mosioua Lekota, foreign affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and Mbeki’s policy czar Joel Netshitenzhe had clearly made a costly mistake. In this atmosphere, the more prudent, such as the ANC’s new deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe, new Treasurer Mathews Phosa and business tycoon Tokyo Sexwale read the members’ mood and choose Zuma.

Mbeki could have had his pick of any of the great younger leaders and secured his political and economic legacy. Alas, his ego and lack of confidence prevented him from supporting strong younger candidates – of whom there are dozens, but who won’t necessary defer to him, such as Ramaphosa, Phosa or Sexwale. Elections, legacies and countries’ futures are imperilled by such selfishness. Now the forces unleashed by Zuma’s election may trigger the long overdue realignment of the elements of the ruling ANC tripartite alliance, with the unions and the communist party. For starters, the ANC now consistd of two blocs, superficially rallied around the personalities of Mbeki and Zuma. The fallout over prosecuting Zuma and the contest between the two centers of power (Zuma as ANC president and Mbeki as the country’s president) adds to the impossible task that Zuma now faces to hold together his disparate group of supporters, ranging from conservative traditionalists to socialists, held together by their animosity to Mbeki, and deliver his contradictory promises – in return for their support for his electoral campaign -- to all of them. Furthermore, the members that voted Mbeki out will now be all too eager to exercise their newfound democratic power, to kick out future unresponsive leaders. If Mbeki had a tough time, Zuma will face worse times.