JOHANNESBURG: Battle lines were drawn on Monday for South Africa’s ANC as voting began to elect a new leader to succeed President Jacob Zuma as head of a party that has ruled since the end of apartheid but faced scandals and corruption allegations.
The vote is perhaps the most pivotal moment for the ANC since it launched black-majority rule under Nelson Mandela’s leadership 23 years ago. With scandal and graft accusations having tainted Zuma’s presidency, the party is deeply divided.
Whoever emerges at the helm of the African National Congress, a 105-year-old liberation movement that dominates Africa’s most industrialized economy, is likely to become the country’s next president after elections in 2019.
A total of 4,776 delegates began casting their ballots in the early hours of Monday, the ANC said, to select between Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Zuma’s preferred candidate, his ex-wife and former cabinet minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
Voting was still going on at 0400 GMT.
“Delegates are very exhausted,” an ANC source, who is a voting delegate, told Reuters. “I don’t know how they will run today’s sessions.”
Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma were the only candidates nominated for the ANC leadership at a conference in Johannesburg on Sunday night.
In a boost to Ramaphosa, courts ruled that officials from some provinces seen as supporting Dlamini-Zuma had been elected illegally and were barred from the conference.
The rand currency gained after that news on Friday, extending its gains to more than 2 percent on Sunday. .
“The rand is stronger on the likelihood of Cyril Ramaphosa being elected ANC head,” said Brett Birkenstock, a director at Overberg Asset Management. “The markets favor Ramaphosa and expect him to improve the economy.”
The currency, which is expected to be volatile until the new ANC leader is announced, had trimmed most of its gains early on Monday to trade 0.13 percent firmer at 13.0725 to the dollar by 0416 GMT, off an earlier 3-1/2-month high of 12.7300.
A winner had been expected to be announced on Sunday, but long delays led to the vote being pushed back repeatedly. It was not clear when the outcome would be announced.
On Saturday, Zuma announced plans to raise subsidies for tertiary colleges and universities, a move analysts said was timed to appeal to the party’s more populist members allied to Dlamini-Zuma, the first woman nominated as an ANC presidential candidate.
Zuma has faced allegations of corruption since he became head of state in 2009 but has denied any wrongdoing.
Ramaphosa, a former trade union leader who became a businessman and is now one of the richest people in South Africa, has vowed to fight corruption and revitalize the economy, a message hailed by foreign investors.
Dlamini-Zuma pledged during her campaign to tackle the racial inequality that has persisted since the end of white-minority rule.
Ramaphosa drew the majority of nominations from party branches scattered across the country. But the complexity of the leadership race makes it uncertain he will win the final count.
“The race is extremely close,” said Susan Booysen, a political analyst at the University of Witwatersrand’s School of Governance in Johannesburg.
“Before today we said Dlamini-Zuma could emerge as a winner. Even if there is a strong lead in terms of branch nominations by the Ramaphosa camp, it’s not clear-cut.”
South Africa’s ANC votes to elect successor for party leader Zuma
South Africa’s ANC votes to elect successor for party leader Zuma
Brazilian ex-President Jair Bolsonaro undergoes double hernia surgery
- He was granted court permission to leave prison after federal police doctors confirmed that he needed the procedure
- The surgery in Brasilia is expected to last about four hours
SAO PAULO: Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is undergoing double hernia surgery on Thursday at a hospital in the country’s capital, his family said.
Bolsonaro, who has been hospitalized since Wednesday, has been serving a 27-year prison sentence since November for an attempted coup.
He was granted court permission to leave prison after federal police doctors confirmed that he needed the procedure. The surgery in Brasilia is expected to last about four hours, the DF Star hospital medical team said in a statement Wednesday.
Doctors say Bolsonaro’s double hernia causes him pain. The former leader, who was in power between 2019 and 2022, has gone through several other surgeries since he was stabbed in the abdomen during a campaign rally in 2018.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw Bolsonaro’s coup trial and sentenced him to prison, authorized the procedure, but denied the former president’s request for house arrest after he leaves the hospital.
Bolsonaro doesn’t have any contact with the few other inmates at the federal police headquarters in Brasilia, where he is held and where his 12-square-meter (around 130-square-foot) room has a bed, a private bathroom, air conditioning, a television and a desk, according to authorities.
He has free access to his doctors and lawyers, but other visitors must receive approval from the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, de Moraes authorized Bolsonaro’s sons to visit him while he’s hospitalized. His wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, is accompanying him.
Early Thursday, his eldest son, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, told reporters before the surgery that his father had written a letter confirming he had appointed him as his political party’s presidential candidate in next year’s election. Flávio Bolsonaro announced on Dec. 5 that he will challenge President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is seeking a fourth nonconsecutive term, as the candidate of Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party.
The senator read the letter to journalists, and his office released a reproduction of it to the media.
“He represents the continuation of the path of prosperity that I began well before becoming president, as I believe we must restore the responsibility of leading Brazil with justice, resolve and loyalty to the aspirations of the Brazilian people,” Bolsonaro said in the handwritten letter, dated Dec. 25.
The former president and several of his allies were convicted by a panel of Supreme Court justices for attempting to overthrow Brazil’s democratic system following his 2022 election defeat.
The plot included plans to kill Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and de Moraes. There was also a plan to encourage an insurrection in early 2023.
Bolsonaro was also convicted on charges that include leading an armed criminal organization and attempting the violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. He has denied any wrongdoing.
