Just who is the man about to become not only the president of South Africa, but the most powerful man on the continent?
Most South Africans call him Jay Zed. Others call him by his clan name—Msholoza. And supporters wear T-shirts proclaiming him “100 percent Zulu boy.”
His full name is Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, the middle name, loosely translated from the Zulu, means: “I may laugh with you, but I will be watching my back.” It is a name that has surely suited him, especially in the last few tumultuous years—years in which he was fired as the country’s deputy president; was accused of rape and charged with corruption, bribery, racketeering and money laundering.
So just who is Jacob Zuma?
The man who has been described as part of the African National Congress’ “warrior elite—before the end of apartheid—has survived it all. His supporters, and even some of his detractors, say his resiliency is a testament to his instinct for politics, and many would say, his connection with “the people.” He presents a stark contrast to the cerebral former president Thabo Mbeki, whom Zuma vanquished on his way to the top.
Zuma's father died when he was young, and he worked as a herd boy and kitchen boy to help support himself and his mother. Some say that his lack of formal education has worked to his political advantage. Dali Tambo, son of the late president Oliver Tambo, remembers his mother, Adelaide Tambo, sizing up Zuma’s tough instincts. She told him Zuma was “self-educated in that he was in stormy waters and had to swim for survival like all these other poor rural children and yet found a political calling and directed his life toward that."
In 1959, when blacks had no rights in his country, Zuma joined the African National Congress. Two years later, he joined the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) or Spear of the Nation. He trained in the Soviet Union, and the white South African regime arrested and convicted him of conspiring to overthrow the government. He was sentenced to 10 years on Robben Island and served with Nelson Mandela and many other “struggle veterans.”
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