Western leaders posted missing as Zuma is sworn in as SA president

Fred Bridgland

The Rainbow Nation has lost its innocence and magic since the days of Nelson Mandela’s inauguration 15 years ago, with fears it could become an authoritarian state if the ANC’s new administration fails to deliver

JACOB ZUMA yesterday took South Africa's presidential oath of office to become leader of southern Africa's economic powerhouse after overcoming corruption and sex scandals and a debilitating struggle for control of his party.

President Zuma, the fourth head of state since apartheid ended 15 years ago, made a statesman-like and conciliatory address in which he unashamedly assumed the mantle of Nelson Mandela, now nearly 91 years old and extremely frail, who sat nearby.

Speaking before some 25,000 people on the lawns of Pretoria's century-old Union Buildings, the administrative headquarters of South Africa's government, Zuma recalled Mandela taking the oath of office on the same spot on May 10, 1994, as the country's first black head of state.

"He Mandela made reconciliation the central theme of his term of office," said 67-year-old Zuma. "We will not deviate from that nation-building task. Thank you Madiba", he said, using Mandela's affectionate clan name, "for showing us the way".

He continued: "Madiba healed our wounds and established the Rainbow Nation very firmly. He set us on the path of nation building and prosperity and made us a respected member of the world community of nations. He taught us that all South Africans have equal claim to this country and that there can be no lasting peace unless all of us, black and white, learn to live together in harmony and in peace."

Zuma was accompanied by his senior wife, 68-year-old Sizakele Khumalo, his childhood sweetheart and the matriarch who presides over his village compound in rural Zululand. His two other current wives, Nompumelelo Ntuli, 34, and Thobeka Mabhija, 35, were also on the podium. Zuma has at least 22 children by his wives - including one who divorced him and another who committed suicide. His unabashed polygamy has raised many eyebrows and questions, including which of his spouses will act as first lady.

Zuma is confronted by an in-tray stacked with problems. He takes over a country plunging into its first post-apartheid recession, no longer sure of its place in the world and no longer serenaded as the Rainbow Nation that somehow body-swerved a race war with the help of the world's last secular saint, Nelson Mandela.

Western leaders, who jostled to get front seats at Mandela's inauguration 15 years ago, all gave yesterday's bun fight a miss. Britain was represented by a minor lord, Mark Malloch Brown, an assistant minister at the Foreign Office. Barack Obama, Africa's great Afro-American hope for Africa, sent US trade representative Ron Kirk.

As top foreign cheerleaders, Zuma was left with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos and Swaziland's King Mswati.

The West's semi-boycott told its own story. South Africa has lost its innocence and magic.

Zuma came to power on a raft of promises to create jobs and speed up the delivery of houses, clinics, schools, electricity and running fresh water. He disarmed opponents with an affable smile and sympathetic ear. His easy rapport with ordinary people gave him pop-star status among the African rural and urban poor.

But it is unclear how he will deliver. The worldwide economic tsunami was delayed in reaching South Africa's shores, but now it is hitting with a vengeance. New figures show that the country lost more than 200,000 jobs in the first three months of the year. With unemployment already running at 40%, economists forecast the rate will top 43% by the end of 2009 as more jobs in mining, textiles, tourism and automotive parts are shed.

A year-long study by 35 of the country's top intellectuals - its release timed for the beginning of the Zuma presidency - warned that South Africa is at an important crossroads 15 years after the end of apartheid. It was possible, said the Dinokeng Report, chaired by Dr Mamphela Ramphele, partner and mother of the children of the murdered Black Consciousness leader Steven Biko, that the country could become a failed, authoritarian state unless the Zuma administration plays its cards right.

Ramphele, introducing the devastating critique - named after the village north-east of Johannesburg where the business and trades union leaders, journalists, religious leaders and government officials gathered - said the unemployment figures hid the true gravity of the situation. In a country plagued by serious violent crime and with education and health systems in crisis, together with 1000 Aids deaths daily, she said that half of South Africans between the ages of 20 and 24 are unemployed. Ramphele added that healthcare had become so bad that many rural people are too afraid to visit clinics for fear of never leaving alive.

"State capacity to address our challenges is weak and declining," said the Dinokeng Report. "Leaders of all sectors have become increasingly self-centred, unethical and unaccountable."

It is against this background that Zuma has raised the expectations of the great swathes of poor and unemployed people in one of the world's most unequal and culturally divided societies. Given his narrow escapes from convictions of corruption, fraud, racketeering and rape, there are widespread perceptions that Zuma can be bought and lacks the ability to deliver.

His critics have dubbed him South Africa's OJ Simpson, and Archbishop Tutu, one of the country's most iconic figures, said he refused to use his vote in last month's general election to elect Zuma, someone of whom "the country will be ashamed I can't pretend to be looking forward to having him as my president. We are at a bad place right now in our country."