building up to elections in South Africa

Here in South Africa there will be presidential election on the 22nd of this month and things are starting to build up. The 22nd has been declared a public holiday so people can goand vote. I thinks that this is good even though it might have been easier to choose a day which was already a public holiday this month since in April we already have three days of public holiday. After all some people are paid by the day and only make money if they work. Here I am talking about the so called "casual labourers" (I can't stand this expression), the gardeners, the maids of which there are LOTS in South Africa.

But back to the elections. The two biggest issues about it are of course: the all mess around Jacob Zuma, and the split of the ANC.
Right now the leading party is the ANC (African National Congress). But a few months ago The ANC split into two and part of people from the ANC form the Cope (congress of the People). There is a good article explaining the split on BBC World. Prior to the split ANC was pretty guarantied to win the elections, but now there is a slight possibility that this might not happen.
Jacob Zuma is the head of the ANC is facing charges of corruptions for the second time regarding a very controversial $4.8billon arms deal which took place in 1999. Of course his supporters are saying that all this is brought up as a political move to prevent him from being elected and you do have to say that the timing is a suspicious here.
Desmond Tutu yesterday spoke up about all this and said that if Zuma wants to clear his name he should go through the court, and I have to agree with him on this, apart from the fact that regardless of what the results are it will not change people opinions. People will just assumed that the court system just did not work regardless of what the results are...and really there are no reasons to beleive the court system.
Tutu these days is speaking quite strongly against the ANC. In fact today in the front page news are all about the ANC condemning "Tutu's sacrilege".
Tutu is an old hero of the anti-apartheid days and is of the same "vintage" than Nelson Mandela. I remember going to see him speak in Calgary years ago when Iw as a students. I thought he was a very charismatic character, something that you don't catch on TV shows.


On a different note:
Presumably the fact that South Africa has denied the Dalai Lama a visa for him to come and meet with other Nobel Peace prize winners so as not to offend China has made it to the news where ever you are.