APA-Durban (South Africa) The son of former South African president Jacob Zuma, Duduzane, has announced that he would contest for the country’s presidency next year, saying it was time for “the old generation to step aside and let the youth take over.”
Speaking in Durban when he launched the campaign on Monday, Duduzane, aged 40, said he decided to make a run for the country’s highest office because “it is now the time for old people to gracefully leave and let us take the country forward.”
“We need change. I believe I am the change this country needs now. The time has come for us as youth to take the running of the country into our hands,” the younger Zuma said.
He said he was disturbed when people discouraged him from contesting the ruling African National Congress’ presidency at last year’s party conference just because he lacked political credentials.
One did not need to have been in exile, imprisoned or have been a liberation soldier to run the country, Zuma said.
What the country needed most were business skills, rather than political credentials, because a good leader must be able to go all out and woo investors to grow the economy and to create jobs for everyone, Duduzane said.
Like the rest of the Zuma family, Duduzane was a friend of the corruption-accused Gupta brothers who are on the run from the law after years of plundering the South African economy.
He was employed as a director in their company until the Guptas self-exiled themselves in Dubai.
Duduzane also initially fled to the United Arab Emirates but months later he decided to return home, where the police placed him under watch as they gathered evidence concerning the Guptas who show no sign of returning to South Africa soon.
The Guptas’ dodgy business operations led to the formation of the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture which has been probing corruption in the past two years of Jacob Zuma’s reign.
NM/jn/APA