Zuma's African PR Problem

A cartoonist for Uganda's The New Vision newspaper summed it up: a woman in a miniskirt leans into President Jacob Zuma's bedroom, where he is in bed with his three wives.

"Sweetie, I've come to pick up money for baby's Pampers," she says, while in the background a politician speaks to a crowd demanding they "stop having multiple sex partners and unprotected sex".

As news of the president's love child went viral, the continent talked back. It wasn't all bad news, though. Zuma found some pockets of love from Africa.

In Kenya's Daily Nation, one reader wrote in to say the media must "kindly back off and leave JZee alone".

"It's in the interest of the Zulu culture to have as many children as possible," the reader noted. "What you guys are doing is like telling the Maasai to stop herding cattle …"

But another hit right back: "I am not sure what African custom/tradition some of you are purporting to defend. In my African customs you and Zuma would be rolled down the hill in a bee-hive."

Prince Prah, a columnist on a Ghanaian news website, Ghana Web, wrote a stinging piece entitled "South Africa's Sex-President".

"It is sad that at the World Economic Conference in Davos, Switzerland, the [most] exciting contribution from South Africa had nothing to do with economy and development but President Zuma's statements about his polygamy, his promiscuity and Zulu culture," he wrote.

He warned that, in the eyes of ordinary Africans, South Africa appears to be going the same way as the rest of the continent.

"In a country where women's rights used to be taken seriously, his treatment of women as sex objects puts all South African women to ridicule. Polygamy may be accepted among his Zulu stock, but his fathering of a love child raises grave moral questions."

Well-known Zimbabwean journalist Basildon Peta wrote that a scandal of this magnitude in a Western democracy would have seen a leader like Zuma tossed out of power.

"Mr Zuma is unlikely to leave office despite the mounting pressure on him," Peta lamented on unfreemedia.com. "His largely illiterate supporters, his main power base in rural areas, will keep him in office."

But the SMS of the day on The Namibian scolded those who dared to challenge Zuma's freedom to breed, channelling ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema.

"It is disappointing to see and hear people talking left and right about the now famous African child, but nobody is reminding them about the respect that they have to maintain towards all the elders," the paper's website noted. "We are living in fear, African children please behave."

Source: Additional reporting by Tarryn Harbour, Lisa Steyn and Vuvu Vena- South Africa’s Mail &Guardian of 12-18 February, page 4