offers dry kindling for political conflagration. Unemployment and inequality are preposterously high. Many people lack food, power and running water, while members of the ruling African National Congress gorge on graft. In the two years before covid-19 there were more protests than probably at any time in the democratic era. The pandemic, Africa’s worst if official statistics are to be trusted, has killed at least 65,000 people and plunged many more into destitution.
still see Mr Zuma as their leader and his faction as their best chance for enrichment. Some police and spooks preferred the old, corrupt, ways, too. The weakness of the state is most acute in Mr Zuma’s stronghold of KwaZulu-Natal , a province with a history of violence by Zulu nationalists, scores of recent political assassinations, and local mafias. Many Zulus believe Mr Zuma when he claims, speciously, to be the victim of a political witch hunt.
Jacob Zumba is a wicked man
What's the baseline?