Meet Your World Leaders

10:19 pm, 1/12/08

Meet Your World Leaders

You think our election is going to turn out badly? Meet South Africa's Jacob Zuma: He's all Zulu.

Jacob Zuma, the 65-year-old "100 Percent Zulu Boy" and new leader of South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC), has garnered the popular support of communists and young people, some of whom publicly display anti-gay and anti-feminist views.

Although more than a dozen parties are represented in parliament, the ruling ANC has been the main player in South African politics since 1994, which means that Zuma is the most likely successor when current president Thabo Mbeki steps down.

In the most recent installment on his path to the South African presidency, one that could be mistaken for an episode of HBO's "Big Love," Zuma took his fourth wife over the weekend.

Zuma has an estimated 20 children by six different women...A former wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, is South Africa's foreign minister and a potential political rival. Another wife killed herself in 2000.

During his rape trial, Zuma took a "short skirt" excuse, claiming it was his duty as a Zulu warrior to have sex with a woman if she wore a short kanga (an African wrap), and that he could not leave her "unfulfilled."

At one point, Zuma was caught attempting to bribe the victim's aunt with an offer of two cows and a new garden fence in exchange for persuading the victim to withdraw the allegations.

"I had a shower afterwards," Zuma explained after announcing that he had chosen not to use a condom [with his HIV-positive victim while president of the National AIDS Council].

In a country where, according to human rights groups, a woman is raped every 26 seconds, Zuma was found not guilty. His accuser has been granted asylum in the Netherlands.

Zuma has also been accused of taking bribes in a defense-contract scandal for which he still faces trial, as well as charges of consorting with criminals, prostitutes and corruption.

Oddly, all of this earns him a great deal of media criticism, which, in 2006, led him to send off a raft of lawsuits and appoint judges to deal with his "crucifixion".

Zuma's theme song is a folksy tune entitled "Bring Me My Machine Gun" (final line: "now I need some bullets"), which, for some reason, he sings everywhere he goes, including in the parliament. IOL's Ben Trovato once wondered how it is that the man can't catch a break.

Why, in the name of God, won't someone bring Jacob Zuma his machine gun?...As a proud Zulu man, he cannot be expected to fetch his own sorghum beer and automatic weapon.

I don't want to sound churlish, but it might help if he told us where he left the damn thing. It must be somewhere. He definitely started out with one, otherwise he would be singing, "bring me a machine gun". By referring to his machine gun in the possessive, he is telling us that he already has one, but that he has either mislaid it or somebody has moved it from where he last saw it.

Perhaps his machine gun is at his mother-in-law's house. Maybe he can't remember which mother-in-law.

The tune is now available to South Africans as a cellphone ringtone. Said South African blogger "The Hyrax":

What the fuck is wrong with everybody?

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Seems wise.