Democracy or Conspiracy at work in South Africa?

In a strange turn of events in South Africa, the President Thabo Mbeki who has outwardly been a model of propriety and democratic (ish ... this is Africa!) behaviour, has been ousted in a bloodless coup by his greatest rival Jacob Zuma. 

I touched on the background to this event a few weeks ago, but with reference to the threats by his supporters, to use unconstitutional means to overturn any court decision that they didn't support, I little suspected that this was the beginning of the end for Mbeki, who only a few days ago was negotiating the "Zimbabwe settlement". 

Zuma, who has been bedevilled by allegations of corruption, sexual misbehaviour, and other undemocratic behaviour, has somehow survived all of this, with most legal cases being tied down from ever getting to court by his lawyer, whilst he publicly asks for 'his day in court'. A tactic that works with his constituency of barely literate, poor blacks who are politically naive at best, and often followers of the 'land grab politics' of Mugabe at their worst. 

These supporters are the same people who recently took to ethnic cleansing to remove foreigners from many areas. Thabo Mbeki on the other hand only recently got linked to a corrupt arms deal (not terribly convincingly), and then suddenly a judge suggests that he had 'interfered with a case against Zuma' (although not all agreed with the judge), and he is forced to resign by his own (Zuma controlled) ANC party. 

It is a forgone conclusion that Zuma will win the party elections as he already is party president (which is effectively the same thing), and thus when he takes over as President Zuma of South Africa, he will have completed one of the strangest power transfers in African history. 

What this all means for South Africa is hard to judge, on the one hand Thabo Mbeki has accepted his demotion without apparent rancour and peacefully, whilst on the other, this does appear to be a coup (although not with the guns that usually accompany an African coup). Mr Zuma is a strange mixture of deviousness and populism, and its this mixture that makes it hard to predict how this will play out ... but perhaps poorly. 

He recently apparently pledged to help white Boers who were now living in poverty in their own White Townships (the ANC has always accepted Boers as "Afrikaner Africans" but considered the English speakers as "Colonials"). However his anthem "Umshini wami" (Bring Me My Machine-Gun)" tends to suggest that his power base is similar in nature to that of Robert Mugabe's "War Veterans" i.e. young, unemployed males prone to violent behaviour....... and they recently threatened violence if court decisions went against them, which is not a good sign. 

I expect there to be a honey moon period, but should he be baulked in anyway by the courts or constitution, then there may a temptation for him to just override them .... I may be wrong, but there are hints that he has that kind of 'Big Man African politician' personality. 

"Debate is almost non-existent and no one is apparently accountable to anybody apart from their political party bosses. It is bad news for democracy in this country". Helen Suzman