JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — When South Africa’s chunky, bespectacled president-in-waiting, Jacob Zuma, gyrates onstage, stamping his feet and shaking his tail feather, his fans go wild.
But five minutes later, he delivers a deadening, wooden speech that leaves the crowd of African National Congress supporters fidgeting and talking among themselves.
As Zuma leads his ANC into today’s election, the big question is not whether the party will win (it will), nor even the margin of victory. It’s what kind of president Zuma will be — a question that South Africans find surprisingly hard to answer.
“My greatest fear about Zuma is not that there is going to be a sudden ideological lurch or that the populist left will seize control of the agenda,” said author Alec Russell, “but just that there will be a vacuum of leadership, and that he won’t have the rigor and strength to lead the ANC and South Africa.”
Russell, who wrote “Bring Me My Machine Gun,” a study of the ANC after apartheid, said Zuma is perceived in the ANC as weaker than former president Nelson Mandela or his successor, Thabo Mbeki.
On the opposition side, the Congress of the People, which split from the ANC late last year, is predicted by an opinion poll to attract about 9 percent of the vote, while the Democratic Alliance is expected to garner around 11 percent. With its history as the liberation party, the ANC is predicted to win nearly 65 percent.
