Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s embattled president, still has two years left in his term, but for most business leaders, labor unionists, and even some of his own party’s most venerated leaders, he can’t go soon enough. The campaign to succeed him is already in full swing. The contest will likely be decided in December, when the ruling African National Congress meets to choose a new leader, who’ll also be the party’s candidate in 2019 elections. The front-runners are Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, former chairwoman of the African Union Commission. While Zuma is constitutionally barred from serving a third term, he has a vested interest in the succession race : He may be reliant on his replacement to shield him from graft charges that were dropped weeks before he became president in 2009 and which the main opposition party is fighting to have reinstated. He’s thrown his weight behind Dlamini-Zuma, his ex-wife and the mother of four of his more than 20 childr...

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