SOUTH AFRICA:Determined to become South Africa's next leader, the tarnished ANC president is bending over backwards to please - but not everyone is impressed, writes Bill Corcoranin Johannesburg
AFRICAN NATIONAL Congress president Jacob Zuma has been accused of becoming a "political polygamist" since taking control of the party last December and setting his sights on the biggest prize of all.
The 65-year-old secured a comprehensive victory over Thabo Mbeki at the ruling party's annual conference when the ANC's rank and file members turned against South Africa's current president for being out of touch with the needs of the country's poor.
The victory was a major political comeback by a man whose personal image has been severely tarnished by his sacking as deputy president, a 2006 rape trial in which he was acquitted, as well as fraud and corruption charges he still has to face in August.
Since his success at the Polokwane conference Zuma, who is the ANC's presidential candidate for next year's general election, has been meeting minority groups wary of a future with him at the country's helm.
His chances of becoming South Africa's third democratically elected president hang in the balance until the graft trial's outcome. However, if acquitted Zuma is likely to secure the country's highest office.
With one eye on that eventuality, he has met international investors; the Jewish community; Solidarity, the white industrial workers union, as well as others over the past two months, in an attempt to allay fears over the direction he would take the country.
Zuma's meetings with the various groups have been widely publicised and both the media and opposition parties have accused him of trying to be all things to all people.
Local newspapers have accused Zuma of going against ANC policy in saying to whites he would welcome debate on the reintroduction of the death penalty and the future of affirmative action, a policy that promotes access to employment for the country's historically disadvantaged black citizens at the expense of whites.
In a recent weekly news letter, Helen Zillie, the leader of the main opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), accused Zuma of being unable to take a firm and independent stand on issues.
"Instead he simply bends in the direction of whoever he is courting at that moment. He is best described as a political polygamist, trying to satisfy many different political brides simultaneously," she said.
A prime example of this, she highlighted, was when Zuma tried to impress businesses by calling for greater labour market flexibility during an interview with the Financial Mail.
However, when confronted by the country's largest union the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) Zuma quickly did an about turn, she maintained, and insisted he would lay down his life in defence of the current labour market regime."This about face was not enough for Cosatu, who are clearly anxious about Zuma's flip-flopping," said Ms Zillie.
Independent political analyst Dale Mckinley told The Irish Times that both the media and opposition group's recent assessment of the motives behind Zuma's actions and comments were misdirected, and based on a desire to discredit the ANC's new leader.
"What Zuma is doing mirrors what Mandela and Mbeki did before him - he is reassuring minority groups that the ANC is a broad church that represents all sections of society.
"The mainstream media here represent the corporate world and they are suspicious of Zuma since he was swept to victory at the ANC's conference on the back of the poor vote; the opposition are doing what opposition parties do," he said.
To unearth the truth behind Zuma's actions since the ANC's annual conference, the events must be looked at through the lens of politics, said McKinley.
"In modern economies, those who rise to power through liberal politics move back to the middle ground once power has been secured. Polokwane's politics was about capturing the poor vote; now he [ Zuma] returns to a more statesman-like approach to politics," McKinley argues.