South Africa's Transition to New Political Leadership

South Africa Looks Beyond Mbeki to Zuma

Helen Kilbey/AllAfrica

President Thabo Mbeki was in an unenviable position when he delivered his penultimate State of the Nation address in February 2008, says political commentator Zubeida Jaffer, reflecting on the challenges facing the ruling African National Congress.

See the AllAfrica photo gallery of the Opening of Parliament.

(right) Mbeki with other dignataries outside Parliament.

ANC Removes Mbeki, Ministers in Internal 'Coup'

ANC/FriendsOfJZ

Thabo Mbeki (left) was defeated by Jacob Zuma.

Thirteen years after liberation, South Africa experienced a coup in December 2007 - a constitutional coup mounted from within the ruling African National Congress. The party first replaced President Thabo Mbeki as party leader with Jacob Zuma, the person he fired as deputy president in 2005 over corruption allegations, then removed many of Mbeki's Cabinet ministers from its national executive committee.

From this page, allAfrica brings commentary from blogs written by our team of experienced journalists.

AllAfrica's Bloggers

Charlayne Hunter-Gault

Charlayne Hunter-Gault brings to the ANC conference the eye of an American observer who has covered the ANC since since its leaders were in exile - as well as the dispassionate reportage of one of her country's most renowned public broadcast journalists, whose book, New News Out of Africa affirms her journalism of commitment. She also knows racism at the sharp end: just to study journalism, she had to endure taunts, jeers, bricks and bottles to enroll in a hitherto all-white university in the American South.

Reporting the conference for National Public Radio, she shares her personal reflections with allAfrica readers.

Zubeida Jaffer

An award-winning journalist, honoured for her achievements within South Africa and abroad, Zubeida Jaffer has chronicled South Africa's struggle for liberation from the inside.

Detained and tortured by apartheid security police, she brings to her reflections on the ANC's conference the perspective of an independent commentator who shared the suffering and sacrifice experienced by many of the conference delegates who now hold the ANC's future in their hands.

Cyril Madlala

At a time when the supporters of Jacob Zuma wear "100% percent Zuluboy" T-shirts, raising fears of ethnic mobilization not seen in the ANC before, Cyril Madlala is the ideal commentator to help readers assess the conference.

Editor of UmAfrika,he was a pioneer in carving out an independent role for Zulu-language newspapers in the 1980s. After a string of top appointments in South African journalism, he is now building UmAfrika into a serious journal for educated readers of Zulu across party lines.