How Zuma is losing his grip on KwaZulu-Natal
'We are going to face a decline and we are going to face a crisis if it is not already the case'
As South Africa faces its worst political crisis in a decade with thousands of protesters demanding President Jacob Zuma’s ouster, a key battle to determine who will succeed him is raging on his home turf. The KwaZulu-Natal region accounts for more than a fifth of the ruling African National Congress’ members, the most of the nine provinces, and has been a springboard for Zuma’s rise to power. During his campaign to win the ANC presidency in 2007, some of his supporters wore “100% Zulu boy” T-shirts, a reference to the area’s dominant ethnic group. Now faction fighting there is undermining his attempt to ensure his favored candidate succeeds him when he steps down as party leader in December. “In all my years in the ANC, I’ve never seen things as bad as this when it comes to unity,” said Babu Baijoo, a 68-year-old former speaker of the municipality in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal’s second-biggest city and capital, and a party member for a quarter century. “The branches have been ...
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