* Deputy president seen as main Zuma challenger
* “Cryptic” Motlanthe plays the crowd, but gives little away
* Six more weeks of speculation likely
By Ed Cropley
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 12 (Reuters) – If it was a declaration of
a bid to become president of South Africa, it was a very strange
one.
After weeks of speculation that he is lining up a challenge
to President Jacob Zuma in an African National Congress (ANC)
leadership election in December, Deputy President Kgalema
Motlanthe attracted a packed house at the launch of an official
biography on Thursday night.
To the hundreds of supporters jammed into the auditorium at
Johannesburg’s Wits University, his remarks were affirmation
that Motlanthe is taking up the mantle of an “Anyone But Zuma”
campaign dividing the ruling party in Africa’s biggest economy.
To the less partisan observer, his comments were more
notable for their obscurity and ambiguity, even by the standards
of a 100-year-old liberation movement with a habit of talking in
code forged in the long underground struggle against apartheid.
Foregoing the chance to comment on the labour unrest
sweeping through the mining sector, Motlanthe – once head of the
biggest mining union – instead embarked on a rambling anecdote
about alternative learning techniques that he had seen this week
on an official visit to a school in Italy.
Continued…
