Former South African president Nelson Mandela made a rare appearance at a political rally in support of his African National Congress (ANC) party yesterday amid internal divisions over its leader and likely presidential candidate, Jacob Zuma.
Mandela joined Zuma on the platform as the ANC leader campaigned in the Eastern Cape, a traditional party stronghold where it now faces a significant challenge from a breakaway faction in the race for the 22 April ballot.
An ANC spokeswoman, Lindiwe Zulu, said thousands attended the rally, but Mandela did not speak. His grandson, Mandla, addressed the crowd instead, saying that he and his grandfather were “there to confirm their ANC membership and support for the party.”
“He said they were here to dispel any notion by anybody, anywhere who thinks that anybody within the Mandela family, particularly Nelson, were not supporting the ANC,” Zulu said.
Mandela’s endorsement was important as the ANC grapples with a growing perception that the party’s primary preoccupation these days is to prevent Zuma going on trial for corruption. Zuma is likely to be formally nominated as his party’s election candidate even though charges are hanging over him, reinforcing a widening view that the ANC is soft on corruption and that some of its leaders have enriched themselves while in power.
Mandela’s presence was also significant because his successor as South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, has so far refused to publicly endorse the ANC in the election after he was forced from office last year by Zuma’s supporters in the party.
Some ANC allies of Mbeki went on to form a breakaway party, the Congress of the People.
It poses little threat to Zuma’s challenge for the presidency but could significantly eat into the size of the ruling party’s majority in parliament and has attracted the support of a handful of prominent former ANC officials. The perception that some ANC politicians are living extravagant lifestyles has been reinforced in recent days by revelations about the party’s senior spokesman, Carl Niehaus.
He was forced to resign after admitting forging the signatures of other ANC officials in an attempt to borrow large amounts of money and lying to people who loaned him substantial amounts, which he used on his mansion, luxury cars and skiing holidays.
Media reports said Niehaus was forced to resign from a job in Mbeki’s presidency after charging holidays to government expense accounts, but the ANC apparently did not initiate a criminal investigation.
He was previously forced to resign as chief executive from an evangelical church because he failed to repay a loan of about £50,000 (US$72,000), and he was asked to quit a top job with the audit firm Deloitte and Touche over implausible expense claims and his financial problems.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS