African press review 9 January 2012

South Africa's ANC party's celebrations of its 100th birthday, the power of Zanu PF in Zimbabwe and political turbulence in Nigeria are all leading topics in Monday's African dailies...

It's hard to get away from the 100th birthday celebrations of the African National Congress.

Under the headline "Golf and grandstanding as ANC’s party starts", South Africa's BusinessDay reports that the ANC’s 100-year celebrations in Bloemfontein started with a golf day on Friday, going on to say that youth league leader Julius Malema stole the limelight from President Jacob Zuma.

The golf day for top ANC officials caused a certain amount of controversy in a country where housing, hospitals and basic services are beyond the means of many.

While Zuma went on door-to-door visits in Botshabelo in the Free State’s Mangaung municipality, the supposedly disgraced Malema was holding a "mini rally" in neighbouring Thaba Nchu.

Malema said one of his biggest dreams was to see white domestic workers in South Africa, where white people controlled everything from the means of production and mines to banks and even labour.

In a related editorial, BusinessDay says that the flexibility shown by the ANC over 100 years allowed it to adapt to changing circumstances. However, increasingly there are signs that the ruling party is losing this flexibility and the capacity to really hear what South Africans are saying as it becomes consumed by the pursuit of wealth and power.

The editorial ends by gloomily wondering what energy and principles will drive the ANC's second hundred years.

The Star's main headline reads "Zuma vows to rebuild ANC", but the small print says the president's two-hour speech promising a make-over for the ruling party failed to rouse the huge crowd at yesterday's centenary rally.

According to The Star, Zuma's pledge that the ANC would take urgent and practical steps to restore what he called its core values, stamp out factionalism and promote political discipline was the only part of the speech that received any real applause.

The ruling party in Zimbabwe comes in for its share of criticism too. According to an opinion piece in the Harare daily "NewsDay", Zanu PF is not the government nor does it represent the wishes of the majority in Zimbabwe.

The party has arrogantly continued to behave as if it owns the country, says "NewsDay". The daily says Zanu PF leaders at cell, branch, ward, district, provincal and national levels want to believe Zimbabwe and everything in it, including its people, are Zanu PF property.

Nothing exemplifies this arrogance more than weekend reports on the gold rush in Kwekwe following the discovery of new deposits there.

The party has decided to lay claim to the deposits.

When gold panners found new, rich gold deposits in the midlands mining town last week, Zanu PF, represented by its Midlands provincial security officer Owen Ncube immediately moved in to announce it had taken over the area where the precious mineral was found.

The party did not have to go through any legal processes to acquire the land on which the gold was found. All party activists did was to call a rally and announced the takeover. This, says "NewsDay" is anarchy writ large.

In Nigeria's "Guardian", three literary figures  . . . Chinua Achebe, JP Clark and Wole Soyinka . . . co-sign an address to the nation under the headline "Let not this fire spread".

They see the activities of the Boko Haram sect as the first cracks in the wall of patience and forbearance. The three writers go on to warn that the current political structure has opened new avenues towards economic hardship in a people’s struggle for survival, such as the recent crisis of the removal of the petroleum subsidy.  They call upon the government to re-think this measure. And they warn the security forces to remember that their primary duty is to protect all citizens, and most especially those in opposition to government policies.

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