SOUTH AFRICA’S populist president Jacob Zuma should show more leadership, former Trinity College dean of arts Kader Asmal has said during a visit to Dublin.
Prof Asmal, an ANC exile who returned to South Africa after the defeat of apartheid and served twice as a government minister there, said: “His approach to politics is not mine. I would like him to be providing much more leadership in relation to the economic system and other issues.”
Prof Asmal said Mr Zuma should “play a bigger part in silencing the dangerous views” of Julius Malema, the firebrand head of the ANC youth league and a close ally of the president.
Discussing the recent media coverage of Mr Zuma’s personal life, and opposition claims that it is at odds with his rhetoric on HIV/Aids, Prof Asmal said: “I think his private life is not something I can approve of . . . but I think it is neither here nor there if the ANC continues to have confidence in him to continue as president. I myself believe that there is a need for a strong morality in governance.”
Reflecting on South Africa’s progress almost two decades since the end of apartheid, Prof Asmal acknowledged that challenges remain. “The most important thing is that we have consolidated democratic order,” he said. “The disappointment is in the speed of delivery, not the concept.”
He said South Africa’s truth and reconciliation commission should also probe “long-term issues as to the causes of violence” in the country.
Prof Asmal also deplored the “shocking xenophobia” towards immigrants who had moved to South Africa from other African countries in recent years.
Prof Asmal, who led the Irish anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s, was in Dublin to deliver the inaugural lecture at Trinity College’s Centre for Post-Conflict Justice.